


Space Mercenaries AU

by DeckofDragons



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: AU, Alien Spy, Aliens, Dragons, Gen, Half Alien Scout, M/M, Magic, Mute Pyro, My AU, Respawn, Sentient AI, Sign Language, Space Pirates/Mercenaries AU, SpyDad, Tags to be added as I go, Temporary Character Death, There will be ships both the space kind and the relationship kind, Unethical Experimentation done by Medic (shocking I know), one shots, space, space ship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 12:00:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 28,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17549297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeckofDragons/pseuds/DeckofDragons
Summary: One shots about the TF2 crew as space mercenaries.An AU that I came up with myself. And this is my 100th fic. :)





	1. Meet the Crew

**Author's Note:**

> This is my 100th fic on Ao3, yay! That's super exciting. I've wanted to come up with and write for my own AU for a long while now, and now I finally have, yay!
> 
> This is just a basic introduction to it. There's still plenty of stuff about the characters that isn't revealed here, I didn't have enough time for all of it. For the most part this is probably going to be one shots that take place in this universe. I don't know how often this'll update but I'll try to do so fairly regularly. But I'm super excited for this, I've wanted an AU of my own for so long and it serves perfectly as my 100th fic because it's special. :)

The spaceship was huge, bigger than Scout had thought it’d be. The logo for the company that owned it, RED, was on the side big enough to be seen from a distance. According to Miss Pauling – the lovely lady who was now Scout’s immediate superior – the rumors floating around that it originated from Earth were true. Having lived his whole life on a colony far-far away from Earth meant Scout had never met anyone from there. Making this new job even more exciting then it had been already.

Pauling had told him to just hop on board, store his belongings in his new room and then introduce himself to everyone. Easy-peasy except for the fact that he didn’t know how to board it. All his experience with spaceships had been the small pilotable kind – he was the best pilot on this planet and everyone knew it, it’s why he’d been hired.

Hiding his nervousness with practiced ease, he strode right up to it, ignoring everyone else milling around the dock pretending not to look at the biggest spaceship to ever grace this out of the way planet. Luckily the entrance wasn’t hard to find, a ramp led right up to it so he only embarrassed himself a little bit when he started circling the ship before quickly finding it. He held his ID up to the scanner next to it as he’d been instructed to do. Hopefully he was doing this right. It beeped after a few seconds and the doors opened with a nice slick sound straight out of a science fiction movie.

“Cool,” he said under he breath as he slid his ID back in his pocket.

This was _really_ happening though, he was officially a hired mercenary. He could _finally_ leave home and be independent, sort of anyway, there’d still be his team and his employers but they weren’t his mom or his brothers. Maybe he’d even find his dad one day. … Not likely, the universe was far too big for that to have any more than a snowball’s chance in hell of happening, but a nice thought nonetheless. If Scout _did_ find him though he didn’t know what he’d do, hug him or punch him for leaving – perhaps both – so it was probably for the best anyway.

He took a deep breath, adjusting the weight of the bag on his shoulder – filled with all his worldly belongings, there weren’t many of them – as he stepped in. Hopefully he didn’t look as much like a wide-eyed recruit as he felt. He needed to be cool and suave, like this wasn’t his first time being hired on as a proper mercenary.

Inside was cool and filled with the soft hum of machines that seemed to come from _everywhere_. He was in a hallway that led to an entrance hall? It was a spacy room with lots of passages leading off it.

“Hey fresh meat!” The shout was loud enough to echo, filling the room and making Scout flinch and jump back.

The shouter, who was a black man wearing an eyepatch apparently thought that was hilarious. He was laughing it up as he exited out of one the hallways, walking with a slight sway as if he were slightly intoxicated. The brown bottle in his hand supported that hypothesis. “Sorry mate,” didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, his chuckles dying off as he reached Scout. “You can call me ‘Demo’ or ‘Demoman’, I blow shit up.” He held out his hand, offering to shake.

Scout frowned at him, unsure if he should be offended about being laughed at. He was a bit jumpy sometimes, it wasn’t his fault and it _certainly_ wasn’t funny. He wasn’t going to start off his new job with being upset with his teammates if he could help it though so he shook Demo’s hand.

“I’m Scout,” he said, puffing out his chest. He liked that he was allowed to use a nickname here, it separated this even further from his old life. And according to Miss Pauling everyone else was doing it too so it was only natural. “I fly ships and run really fast and kill people.” He’d never killed anyone before but that was what he was being hired to do, right? Part of it anyway. So he better pretend it was no big deal. “I’m the best at it.”

“You talk real tough small fry, I like it,” Demo said. Good, Scout had already impressed him. … The ‘small fry’ comment wasn’t great though, but he’d take what he could get right now. “Want me to show you around, introduce you to everyone?”

“Nah, I’m good. I’ve been aboard ships like this before, I can find my way around no problem.”

“Whatever you say mate, if you change your mind though I’ll be in the kitchen.” He took a chug from his bottle before starting to head for one of the hallways. “See you around.”

“Yep, see you around pal,” Scout returned with confidence.

So far, so good. His first meeting with one of his teammates had gone well, seven more to go. First, he had to find his room though to drop his stuff off. It couldn’t be _that_ hard to navigate this place, could it?

 

Scout was lost. He didn’t want to admit it but he was. Everything looked the same and the ship seemed to take full advantage of its massive size to cram as many corridors and rooms into itself as physically possible. There were a ton of locked rooms, presumably leading to important places he didn’t have the clearance to access yet, they cut off his options for places to go but the dead ends were frustrating.

There were signposts, pointing this way and that way but… none of them pointed towards the sleeping quarters. There were several that pointed to the kitchen but Scout couldn’t go there and ask Demo for that tour after all. That would be both admitting defeat and that he’d lied about being able to find his way around on his own, both were unacceptable.

He’d brute force his way through this. If he just kept going he’d find it eventually. … It’d be nice to have a map though, even if he wasn’t good at reading them it’d help a little probably.

He turned a corner and almost ran into somebody. A very odd somebody who wore a full body suit and mask, making it impossible to see his face. The empty gaze of his mask was… vaguely intimidating, making Scout take a step back before he could stop himself.

The fellow waved, wriggling his fingers. He then made gestures with his hands; sign language. Scout had seen it enough times to recognize it but he’d never learned it himself, it hadn’t ever occurred to him that he might need it one day.

“Uh… I don’t understand,” he said. Was the guy deaf? Could he understand Scout? Was it rude to ask? Would they have to communicate via writing? That would be fine but for the fact Scout’s dyslexia made it hard to read and write properly most of the time, he didn’t want to reveal that to people he’d just met and needed to impress, they’d think he was an idiot.

The guy seemed to sigh without actually sighing? His shoulders slumped as he hung his head, giving it a light shake. That meant he _could_ understand Scout though, right? He was reacting to what had been said.

“I’m Scout, I’m the new guy.” Ugh, why’d he have to state the obvious? “Uh… do you think you could show me the way the sleeping quarters or whatever?” _This_ guy didn’t know Scout had claimed he’d be fine on his own here so asking for help from him was fine, right? Then again, asking a mysterious masked figure for directions might not be a wise move. He was part of the crew though, right? So, it’d be fine… probably. If not, Scout had a gun and he knew how to use it, he could defend himself.

The fellow nodded, giving him a thumbs up. He then gestured for Scout to follow him and started skipping down the way he’d come. With no better options present, Scout followed.

Turns out they were two turns away from the sleeping quarters. See? Scout would’ve totally found it on his own, he hadn’t needed to ask this guy for directions and thus it didn’t count that he had.

Only one of the rooms was open at the end of the hall, the ninth one according to Scout’s count. The masked fellow led Scout right too it and tapped the wall by it. He then pointed out Scout and then gave him a thumbs up.

“Thanks,” Scout said. “But uh… there’s only eight other people?” He’d asked and been told that he was the final member of the team and thus he’d expected more people. Maybe there was another hallway?

But the masked guy nodded, giving Scout another thumbs up, indicating that that was correct. There were only nine people on this team. On the bright side that meant meeting them all wouldn’t take too long. First he had to settle into his new room though.

“Thanks uh… see you around buddy,” he told the masked dude – he’d have to get his name from one of the other crew members later – earning another thumbs up before stepping into the room. He pressed the button on the wall to close the door behind him.

It was a fairly small room but there was a bed, desk, and closet. There was more storage space under the bed too. It was his very own room, he didn’t have to share it with _anyone_. _And_ his mom wouldn’t be around to yell at him about cleaning it every time even a tiny mess started to form. He was free and independent, life was great.

 

Scout took his time arranging all his stuff. There wasn’t much so it didn’t take long. It was exciting though, having a room all to himself. He didn’t have worry about people walking in on him when he was changing or doing private things. Or about people messing with his stuff, he could lock the door when he wasn’t in here and no one else could get in.

He almost didn’t want to leave but… he needed – and wanted – to meet the rest of the crew. Solitude for too long would undoubtedly drive him crazy, already he was craving someone to talk to about how awesome this all was. So it wasn’t long before he was stepping out into the hallway again.

There was of course still the problem that he didn’t know where he was going and would probably get lost. But it was a spaceship meant for living and mercenary work, not a maze, so he could figure out its layout… eventually. For now, he could just walk until he ran into someone else, hopefully someone who could better communicate with him and had a face.

As if the thought had summoned him, someone came around the corner as Scout started heading towards it. He wore goggles and a hardhat. “Howdy partner,” he said with a friendly wave. “Pyro told me we had a new guy, so I figured I’d come say ‘hi’ since I’m having a coffee break anyway. You can call me ‘Engie’ or ‘Engineer’, whichever you prefer.”

“Uh… howdy partner?” Scout had never heard a greeting like that before. “I’m Scout. Who’s Pyro? The guy with the mask?”

“Yep, he likes fire so we call him ‘Pyro’. He either don’t like talking or can’t so he speaks in sign instead. Don’t worry though he can hear just fine so you can talk to him normal like.”

“Does he wear the mask and suit thing all the time?” Probably not, right? That would be silly.

“Far as I know yeah. I assume he takes it off to eat and bathe but that’s about it. You can ask him why but he won’t answer and might get upset if you do.”

“All right.” That was weird but… Scout didn’t sign on here expecting everything to be normal and predictable. He was here for excitement and adventure, weird team mates with bizarre habits wasn’t too far out of the realm of expectation. And it was something he could easily live with. “Can you uh… lead me to the kitchen please? Since you’re headed there for coffee anyway.” He could use a snack and if Demo was still there he might take him up on the tour offer after all because he’d undoubtedly get lost again if he didn’t. His excuse could be that he didn’t know where the rest of the team were supposed to be.

“Sure can,” Engie replied. “Follow me.”

Unable to keep quiet while in such a cool place, Scout chatted about it as they walked. In the back of his mind he kept track of where they turned so he could potentially find his way back or make this journey again on his own. His sense of direction was a bit thrown off by how similar the walls all were but now that he was actively trying to remember the way he should have a better time with it.

The kitchen turned out to be nearby, not even a five minute walk. It was big and high tech, Scout wasn’t sure what half the things in here were. It was empty though, Demo wasn’t here. But luckily the fridge was easy to identify and thus Scout didn’t have to embarrass himself by asking.

Inside was various stuff, mostly veggies and fruits, a lot of which he’d never seen before. There was what could only be beer at the bottom in bottles identical to the one Demo had been holding. Water bottles were on the shelf above. There was no soda though, bummer.

“You want coffee boy?” Engie asked. He was off to the side messing with the coffee pot, it was clearly fancy and high tech. Or… high tech compared to what Scout was used to it, it was possible his experience with such things was outdated and this was now the standard.

“No thanks.” Scout couldn’t stand coffee unless it was loaded up with sweeteners and cream, even then though he’d prefer not to drink it. Since he also didn’t want to drink beer – the _last_ thing he wanted to do was get drunk on his first day and embarrass himself in front of his new coworkers – that left him no choice but to drink water. Lame but he probably needed to drink more water anyway.

So after some thought he decided on an apple and a bottle of water. He could experiment with the alien fruits later – not the veggies though, fuck vegetables – and search the cupboards for junk food. For now though he’d play it safe and simple.

“Come out to the dining room,” Engie said, holding his cup of coffee. “There’s bound to be more of the team there for you to meet.”

“Okay.” Scout followed him out of the kitchen through a different door than they’d entered through.

It led straight to the dining room. It was big with a large table in the middle which four people sat at playing cards. Two of them Scout had already met, Demo and Pyro. The other two were a big guy who looked like he could snap Scout in half with his bare hands and a skinny guy in a fancy suit and ski mask. All four looked up as Scout and Engie entered.

“Hey,” Demo greeted with a smile and a handwave. He was drinking still. Pyro waved too, wriggling his fingers.

“Hi again,” Scout said, unable to take his eyes off suit and mask guy. He didn’t want to be rude and stare but… the guy was staring at him, frozen. What his expression might be under the mask was hard to say but his gaze was intense enough to make Scout _very_ uncomfortable. Was he planning on murder or something? “I’m Scout,” he said with a forced smile to the other two, not letting his discomfort show. “Nice to meet you.”

“Heavy,” the big guy said. “Is nice to meet you too.”

Suit and mask guy huffed as he seemed to break out of whatever had frozen him in place, finally pulling his intense stare off of Scout. “I have places to be,” he said, his tone very prim and proper as he placed his cards down on the table and stood up. He then turned around and left, no greeting or anything. Rude.

“That’s Spy,” Engie said. “He… ain’t normally like that.”

“Eh, who knows what’s up with him, he’s a weirdo,” Demo said with a shrug before taking a drink from his bottle. “Come join us, we was in the middle of a game.”

They sat at the table, Engie taking over Spy’s cards. What had Scout done to make Spy already dislike him? Had it been the way he’d said ‘hi’? Maybe the way he was dressed? Something else? Could he fix it? … Probably not, once people started disliking him, that feeling only ever grew.

“You play poker?” Heavy asked, clearly the dealer for this game.

“Uh… sometimes.” Scout wasn’t good at it but did know how to play.

“Good, you join next round. Is good way to get to know each other.”

“Okay.” It’s not like Scout had anything better to do.

“You got lost after all though, huh?” Demo said, chuckling and raising and eyebrow at Scout.

“No, of course not,” Scout lied with a scoff as if that were ridiculous.

Pyro tapped the table and signed something that made Demo laugh. Were they… making fun of Scout? It wasn’t a mocking kind of laugh though but like he was tipsy and giggling because of it.

“You don’t have to lie,” Engie said. “We all got lost when we were new too, you’ll be able to find your way around in no time.”

“Yeah and you’ll get fucking sick of it in no time too,” Demo added. “This ship actually ain’t so big once you been living in it for a while. It’ll drive you mad.”

“Is not so bad,” Heavy cut in. “And once we reach destination we’ll be let off sometimes.”

“What _is_ our destination by the way?” That hadn’t been in any of the advertisements for the job and he’d been too excited about the whole thing to ask during interview or screening process.

“Some solar system somewhere that our boss what’s us to take control of,” Demo said. “Apparently his brother or something also wants it so we’re going to be fighting _his_ hired mercenaries for it, it’s some weird family feud thing.”

“There’s more to it than that but that about sums it up,” Engie said. Scout didn’t care about the details anyway as long as he got paid and got to go on an adventure in the far off reaches of space.

 

“Ah fuck it, I quit.” Demo threw down his cards in frustration after Engie won for the umpteenth time in a row. “Come on Scouty boy, I’ll show you around and introduce you to the others.” His words were slurred and he was unsteady on his feet as he stood.

“Uh… you sure you’re up for that?” Scout asked. The last thing he wanted was for Demo to pass out and Scout to have to carry him when he wasn’t sure where he was going.

“Yes, now you coming or not laddie?”

“Go with him,” Engie said, also standing. “He’ll be fine but don’t take anything mean he says to heart, he doesn’t mean it. I’d go with you but I need to get back to work, see y’all later.” He gave them a wave before leaving through a side door.

“Yes, I also have work to get back too,” Heavy said as he gathered up the cards, stacking them into a nice, neat pile.

Pyro signed something to Demo who replied with “Yeah, you can come too.” Which got a clap from Pyro

With no other options readily available to him, Scout followed the two of them out. It was better than getting lost again. And well, so far he liked his new team mates, except for Spy because Spy didn’t like _him_. Hopefully whatever reason Spy had for disliking him wouldn’t get in the way of any teamwork that might be required of them in the future.

 

“Soldier’s loud and shouty sometimes but he’s a super cool guy once you get to know him,” Demo spoke in a low tone to Scout after halting outside the door labeled ‘REC ROOM’. “And don’t be offended when he calls you ‘maggot’, he means it in the kindest way possible.”

“How can calling someone ‘maggot’ be meant in kind way?” Scout asked but was ignored as Demo turned away to open the door, letting three of them in.

It was an exercise room, full of exercise stuff. Scout was not interested unless there was a track he could run around on in another room or maybe a swimming pool. Off to the side was a guy, presumably Solider, doing one armed pushups. He was counting them out loud too.

“Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five.” He swapped to using his other arm.

“Hey Solider,” Demo called. “The new guy finally came, come meet him.”

Solider paused before snapping up to his feet and coming over to investigate. He looked Scout up and down as if measuring his worth.

“Hey,” Scout said, trying not to shift uncomfortably under his gaze. “You can call me ‘Scout’, I’m…”

“I’ll call you whatever I like maggot,” Solider interrupted.

“Don’t listen to him,” Demo said before Scout could object to the insult. “Solly, this is Scout, he’s the new guy, be nice.”

“Fine,” Solider said as if he were granting a favor. “Nice to meet you maggot, I’m sure you’ll make and excellent addition to the team.” He shook Scout’s hand, almost crushing it in a way too tight grip.

“Nice to meet you too.” Scout bore it with a grin, not even flinching a little bit. The way Solider nodded upon letting go implied he approved of that. Good, the more people Scout could get on the good side of early, the better. He even managed to resist the urge to clutch his aching hand to his chest afterward.

“You know where Sniper is?” Demo asked. “I’m going around introducing him to everyone and showing him around and all that. Pyro’s helping.” He gestured to Pyro before taking a drink from his bottle. Pyro wriggled in his fingers in greeting towards Solider.

Soldier thought about it for a few seconds, Scout could practically see the gears turning in his head as if it were a difficult question. “No, I do not know where Sniper is,” he said finally, looking back up.

“All right, we’ll find him eventually.”

Solider saluted. Demo returned it half-assed while Pyro returned it fully. Not knowing what else to do Scout followed their lead, getting another nod of approval from Solider. Weird but whatever.

Unexpectedly, Solider joined their tour party when they moved on. He took up the rear. His rigid stance implied he was on the look out for possible trouble as if they were on traversing through a dangerous area instead of their own ship base. Odd but not worth questioning, it was clear Solider was an odd fellow anyway.

 

Turns out there as a pool room but no track room. They were expected to get their running exercise on the treadmills, _lame_. Scout would rather jog around the ship’s halls even if that meant getting lost sometimes.

The next important place Demo led Scout – and company – to was the captain’s deck. It was where all the computers that ran the ship were located. They were _far_ more complicated and high-tech than anything Scout had seen before. He wanted to touch them and mess around with them, see if he could figure out how to maneuver this thing but… alas, that would probably end with him getting fired. Maybe one day though… hopefully anyway.

After that Demo brought them to his work station where he made bombs and other things that exploded. And then Engie’s lab where Engie was currently working on something that Scout couldn’t even begin to guess the function of due to how its part were all laid out on the work table.

“Howdy,” he said, preoccupied and not even looking up from his work. “I’m a bit busy right now so I’m going to have to ask you leave.”

“Righty-ho, see you around,” Demo said before moving the party on.

They finally found this Sniper guy in the shooting range. He was kind of hot, tall and rugged looking with a cool hat. Would Scout get in trouble for flirting with a coworker? Maybe so it was best he didn’t, for now anyway.

“Hey Sniper, the final member of our team is here, come say ‘hi’,” Demo said.

Sniper lowered his gun and turned his head towards them. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Scout returned with a cocky grin. “I’m Scout, ace pilot and fastest runner in the galaxy.”

“I’m sure you are,” Sniper said dryly before turning back to his target practice.

“And that’s that,” Demo said with a chuckle, clapping his hands together. He leaned over to speak in Scout’s ear. “He’s one of them loner types, don’t like people much. But he’s cool… I think, haven’t really known him that long.”

“I can still hear you,” Sniper said, not looking away from his target practice.

“Whatever.” Demo shrugged. “Let’s go laddie, I think all that’s left to show you is the med-bay and introduce you to Medic.” He gestured for Scout follow him. A bit disappointed, Scout did so, hopefully he could talk to Sniper more later and hopefully get a chance to impress him.

“Be sure to make the target dummies pay dearly for their crimes,” Soldier said as he exited the room last behind Pyro. If Sniper responded in some way, it wasn’t loud enough for Scout to hear.

 

Everything about the med-bay from the moment they stepped in screamed

‘hospital’ and thus Scout instantly disliked it. Hospitals and doctors were the worst. It even _smelled_ like a hospital, that unique unplaceable smell that brought to mind nothing but needles and freezing stethoscopes.

What was even worse though was the crazed look in the doctor’s eyes when he came out to greet them. “Ooh, a new patient, wonderful,” he said, sounding as if he were talking about a new toy he was excited to play with.

“Hello,” Scout said, pretending to _not_ be afraid. The last thing he wanted was everyone to make fun of him for being scared of something as dumb as doctors and hospitals. Glancing back, he saw that Solider had mysteriously vanished from the party, maybe he didn’t like hospitals either. “I’m Scout.”

“’Medic’ or ‘Doctor’ is fine. Now you two shoo.”  He made a shooing gesture with his hand towards Demo and Pyro. “It’s time I give Scout his physical.”

“Good luck lad.” Demo clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t die.” Pyro signed something at him before they both left, leaving Scout alone with Medic. He was tempted to protest that but it was too late and he didn’t want show fear. So instead, he followed Medic as he gestured him deeper in.

 

The physical was fairly standard fair. Medic took his blood pressure, checked his breathing and heartrate, all that ‘fun’ stuff. When the needle came out though was when Scout’s nerves broke.

“Nope, not happening,” he said, sliding off the examination table. “We are done here.” He started for the door.

Medic grabbed his upper arm, yanking him back. “You can either cooperate or I’ll have to force you.” He sounded like he _meant_ it.

Scout jerked against his hold but he was stronger than he looked; Scout wouldn’t be getting away from him anytime soon. “Fine, fine, I’ll cooperate.” He’d much rather do that than test to see if and how Medic would force him to. “Just make it fast please.”

“Good.” Medic pulled him back the examination table, not taking any chances unfortunately.

Thankfully it was over fast, though still far too long for Scout’s liking. He was careful not to look at it. “Can I go now please?” he asked once Medic was done putting a little bandage on his arm.

“Yes, you may go for now.” Medic made a dismissive hand gesture. “There are more things I’ll need to do with you later though.”

Scout did _not_ like that sound of that. “Like what?”

“If I told you, you’d be very upset so I won’t. You’ll be fine though I promise… probably. Death is always a possibility, so is infection, but it’s unlikely, kind of. Run along for now though, I need some time to analyze your blood sample.”

Scout groaned and retreated. He was _not_ looking forward to whatever Medic had planned for him later but at least he was done now and could leave the horrid med-bay.

He went to his back to his room and only got a little lost on the way there. See? His sense of direction in this place was improving already.

He gratefully collapsed onto his bed with a sigh. He’d met everyone and seen everything, he could rest for a bit. For the most part he was pleased, Medic was scary and so was Pyro in a different way but less so, and Spy didn’t like him for some reason. Everyone else seemed cool and nice though even if a lot of them were a bit strange. But that would only make this adventure more fun though, right?

They’d be going off to a far off distant solar system – it might not actually be distant, he didn’t know – to fight over it and hopefully take it over. It was going to be fun.


	2. Secret

Spy went straight to the Captain’s Room. He was in luck, Miss Pauling was in _and_ answered his knock.

“You need something?” she asked from behind her desk – she’d opened the door with a push of a button – as Spy entered. The door closed automatically behind him.

“Yes, it’s about the new guy,” Spy answered, keeping his emotions under a tight reign. He couldn’t let her know just how flustered he was. It would raise questions about things she didn’t need to know about that she was also _more_ than smart enough to find answers to.

“What about him?”

“Don’t hire him.”

“It’s a bit late for that. He’s already been hired and signed his contract. Why? You got a problem with him?” She gave him her full attention at last. The look on her face said she wasn’t pleased though. If she knew though, how would she react?

He wasn’t going to let anything about that slip though, he had better control than that, so she’d never know… hopefully. But for the first time in a long time, it was hard to keep his emotions fully in check. What were the chances of his son joining on as the same crew as him? When he’d found out they’d been going to stop at this planet for their final recruitment, he’d been surprised but hadn’t thought much of it, it was on the way after all. In fact, he’d been fine with it, it had been a couple years since he’d last checked in on Jeremy in secret, he was happy for the opportunity to do so again. But he hadn’t even once considered that Jeremy might not only apply to join the crew but also get accepted for it too. Him suddenly appearing on the ship out of nowhere and getting introduced as ‘the new guy’ had been the shock of a lifetime.

“Yes,” Spy said, crossing his arms. “He’s too young.”

“Nope, he’s twenty-one, which by human standards is an adult,” Pauling said as if Spy didn’t know that. He’d been living among humans and pretending to be one _more_ than long enough to be well aware of that fact as she knew.

“Not my point, he’s inexperienced, he’ll drag us down, probably get us killed.”

Pauling sighed and shook her head, clearly already bored with this conversation. “Everyone has to start somewhere. He’s one of the best pilots _and_ runners on this planet, he’ll be perfect to act as a scout both on the ground and in the air. Unless he chokes up when combat starts anyway. Personally, I don’t think he will, or at least not for long. If he does, we’ll boot him.”

She was right of course. Jeremy _was_ good at running and flying and he wasn’t likely to choke up during the heat of battle more than maybe once or twice – many people did on their first go at it – he’d make a good scout for the team. But… it might get out that Spy was his dad. That wouldn’t be good considering how Spy had left – more like fled like a coward – before he was old enough to remember him. Had Jeremy ever even figured out he was only half human? Last time Spy had checked on him it didn’t seem like he had. How would he react if he found out about all this?

“But I don’t care if you have a problem with him,” Pauling continued. “He’s part of the team now. You’ll have to either deal with it or break your contract and leave. Which might I add _won’t_ have healthy consequences, don’t think for a second I don’t know how to take out a Shapeshifter. You are dismissed.” She pressed the button on her desk again and the doors opened behind Spy as she returned to her whatever she’d been working on before being interrupted.

He had no choice but to leave.

 

Later Spy found Jeremy with Demo, Pyro, and Soldier. They were taking him on a tour of the ship, Demo leading the group and drinking because of course he was. Spy followed them, remaining invisible so they wouldn’t know he was there.

The three of them kept referring to Jeremy as ‘Scout’. That was the nickname he’d introduced himself under because he was now the team’s scout. Spy would have to start thinking of him as that as well lest he accidentally say his real name out loud, revealing that he knew too much for this to have been the first time he’d seen Jeremy… _Scout_. He’d keep this a secret for as _long_ as possible and just hope it never came out, he had no other options.

The tour eventually ended up in the med-bay where first Soldier left – he didn’t like hospitals – followed by Demo and Pyro once Medic dismissed them. Spy left them too, making his way to Medic’s lab to wait, remaining invisible in the corner.

Medic came in not even a full hour later, carrying what could only be Scout’s blood sample. He inserted the syringe into his analyzer machine. While not state of the art, it was still quick and within minutes it was printing out a string of paper that contained every bit of info about Scout as was possible to get from his blood. Which was a lot, how much exactly Spy wasn’t sure but it was undoubtedly enough for Medic to figure out Scout’s parentage. Whether or not he’d figure out Spy was Scout’s dad was hard to say but… it was very likely. The risk was too big to ignore.

Not surprisingly, Medic ooh’d and ah’d as he read over the results, mumbling in German as he took notes. Spy didn’t quite catch all of it but he did hear his own name – more actually nickname. That’s all the confirmation he needed to make a move.

He flicked open his knife and let his invisibility fade at last. Silently, he snuck up on Medic and put the knife to his throat, making him freeze. “If you say _anything_ to Scout about what’s on the paper, I’ll make you regret it.” He whispered in Medic’s ear to make sure the cameras wouldn’t pick up his words.

Like the mad man he was, Medic laughed, he remained still though. “I take it then, you’re related to him somehow. His alien half is the same type as you are after all and you’re here doing this. So, what’s your secret?”

“Yes, he’s my son.” There was no use lying about it when Medic could _easily_ figure it out on his own later. “If you tell him I _will_ make you regret it.” Given Medic’s less than stable mental state threatening him like this might not work but Spy had to try to keep this under wraps. “And tell _no one_ else either, got it?”

Medic seemed to think about it for several seconds before responding. “All right, I won’t tell him or anyone else if and only if you help me with my experiments when I need you to.”

Spy didn’t like doing this but… he didn’t have much choice if he wanted to keep things a secret. And he’d come here knowing it would probably come to this. “Deal.”

“Good, you can stop holding the knife to my throat now, it’s uncomfortable.” He didn’t sound frightened at all.

With a sigh, Spy withdrew, stepping back and flicking the knife closed one more. “What do you want me to do?” he asked as Medic turned around to face. The bastard was completely unphased by having his life threatened, he was without a doubt no ordinary human.

“I don’t have anything in mind right now but when I come up with something, I’ll be sure to let you know. I’d like to know the story of how you ended up with a bastard child on an out of the way colony planet like this though.” He raised his eyebrows, smiling evilly. “And a half human one at that.”

“No. If we’re done here, I’ll take me leave.” Spy reinstated his invisibility and left. He didn’t bother with opening the door, instead letting his form dissolve and slipping through the cracks as what was essentially a pile of goo, reforming on the other side, still invisible. He was undoubtedly going to regret making that deal with Medic later but it was his only option if he wanted to keep his newfound secret safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the exposition wasn't too heavy here and made sense. But it's a Space AU, I had an opportunity to include aliens (one of the things I like about space stuff is aliens) so I had to include some aliens in the crew. I'd wanted to include the fact that Spy is an alien last chapter but couldn't because he ran away so fast and none of the crew consider him being an alien to be all that important of a fact so they didn't think to mention it to Scout right then. He'll find out eventually though, just like he'll eventually find out Spy is his dad and he himself is half alien (I don't know how that's gonna happen but it's gonna happen eventually).
> 
> And there's one other member of the crew who is an alien. The crew doesn't know about that one though, I'm sure y'all can probably guess who it is based off that clue I just gave. I don't know how I'm gonna reveal it in story yet though. But I will eventually.


	3. Morning

“Hey, how’s it going?” Scout said as he sidled up next to Sniper who was messing with the coffeepot in the kitchen. When Scout had come in for breakfast this morning, he’d been surprised to see him there but wasn’t going to let this chance to maybe get a real conversation going pass by.

“It’s going,” Sniper replied with a grunt.

“So uh… we didn’t get to talk much yesterday. What uh… do you do?”

Sniper poured himself a cup of coffee. “Shoot things, typically from far away.” Ah! Scout had already made a fool of himself. Of _course_ that’s what Sniper did, what else would he do with a nickname like that? He didn’t seem annoyed though? “Coffee?”

“Sure,” Scout said before thinking about it. There was no going back though, Sniper was already pouring him a cup. He accepted it once it was full. It smelled nice at least. How could coffee smell so good and yet taste so awful? It didn’t make sense.

Before he could figure out what to do with his newfound burden, Sniper was moving on. He grabbed a plate from the stack by the stove and piled some pancakes onto it from the stack on the counter. With nothing else to do, Scout followed suit. They then went into the dining room together.

Most of the rest of the crew was already there and most of them gave Scout and Sniper a small wave of greeting. The only one missing was Demo who was presumably still sleeping off how much he’d drunk last night. He’d thrown a ‘Welcome Aboard’ party seemingly as an excuse to get drunk as that was all there’d been to do. It had been a nice gesture though, it had given Scout a chance to hang out with everyone else who’d shown up which was the whole team except for Spy and Sniper.

Hoping he wasn’t being a bother, Scout sat with Sniper. Coincidently it was across the table from Spy who took one look at Scout before getting up and leaving, not even saying anything.

“What’s with him?” Scout asked, gesturing after Spy. He’d literally done _nothing_ to the guy, hadn’t even been in the same room as him for more than a minute at most. He’d never had anyone dislike him that fast before.

“Don’t know,” Sniper answered, unsurprisingly laconic.

Scout sighed before taking a drink from his coffee, it took all his will power and self-control to not make a face in disgust. How did people _drink_ this stuff? He hadn’t even put any creamer or anything else it, he’d been too caught up in sticking with Sniper who hadn’t done so either.

This crush wasn’t something he should even be pursing, was it? They were coworkers, weren’t there rules against dating coworkers? Did that apply in the field of mercenary work though? It could make things awkward. But… he hadn’t expected to find a hot guy here, how could he be expected to resist? Surely it was fine as long as it didn’t get to serious, right?

The chances of anything serious coming from it seemed to get slimmer and slimmer as breakfast went on. The more Scout tried to get Sniper talking to him about something, _anything_ , the less he seemed to want to talk. He was one of those quiet type people that Scout was never sure how to handle. He didn’t want to talk over them or at them but they had a tendency to not talk much so it was hard. Eventually he had to accept his fate and sit in silence, listening in on the conversations going on at other parts of the table.

There was one conversation with only half of it audible, Pyro was signing of course. Which reminded Scout… “You know sign language?” he asked Sniper.

“Uh… yeah.”

“Can you teach me?” That would be a good excuse to spend more time with Sniper, right? “I want to be able to understand Pyro too.” They were a team and thus understanding each other was crucial and knowing what Pyro was saying would hopefully make his mask seem less soulless.

“Nah mate, I ain’t a good teacher. Ask Heavy or Engie, they’re much better.” Sniper wen back to focusing on finishing the last of his breakfast. He then got up and left, not even giving Scout a goodbye. At least Scout had gotten two full sentences of him before he left, that was good, right?

 

“You.”

“Me?” Scout paused on his way out of the kitchen after pouring the rest of his coffee down the drain and putting his dirtied dishes in fancy dishwasher and turned around to see Heavy pointing at him.

“Yes, you,” he said. “You need to learn sign language. I teach you, let’s go.” He gestured for Scout to follow him out.

“Uh… okay.” With a shrug Scout followed. He’d have preferred Sniper to teach but as long as someone did it was fine. He’d just have to find other excuses to hang out with Sniper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I have decided for sure that Scout/Sniper is going to be a thing in this fic. I wanted to write Scout awkwardly trying to flirt with Sniper and Sniper being kinda oblivious too it. xD Also, that bit at the end is there solely to add context for when I inevitably end up writing Scout understanding Pyro's signing in a future chapter because there's no reason for him not to learn it.


	4. Doctor's Visit

“Why do you keep calling me in?” Scout asked, fidgeting on Medic’s examination table.

“To give you a checkup,” Medic answered, not looking at Scout as he prepared a syringe, filling it with a clear fluid from a little bottle.

“Three times in a single week?”

“Yes. Now hold still, this’ll only hurt a little.”

Scout cringed but didn’t try to run ~~because he was afraid to test Medic’s promise about forcing him to cooperate~~ because it was just a shot. He wasn’t a kid anymore, he could handle this. But still he shuddered when he felt the prick of the needle being inserted into his arm. He didn’t look though, as long as he didn’t see it, it wasn’t _unbearably_ horrible, just close to it.

He let out a sigh of relief once it was over. “Is something wrong with me?” That had to be it, right? Why else would Medic call him in so often? “How bad is it? Am I… going to die?”

“No, no, you’re in perfect health.” Medic waved off his worry as he placed the needle into a little plastic bag, presumably to be cleaned and sterilized later.

“Then why do you keep calling me in? What was that shot even for?”

“It was an anesthetic to put you to sleep.”

“ _What_? Why?”

Medic shrugged. “Because I need you unconscious for a while.”

Scout groaned as he slid off the table. He would’ve run but his legs were suddenly wobbly underneath him. Medic’s hands grabbed onto him, preventing him from falling over. He tried to struggle and push him away but the anesthetic was strong and he was already going under.

 

He woke up feeling cold and groggy, unusual and therefore bad, potentially _very_ bad. He forced himself to sit up with a groan and looked at himself. He was wearing only boxers and… there were stitches his chest and abdomen as if… he’d been cut open. “What the _fuck_?”

“Oh good, you’re awake.”

Scout looked over to see he was apparently in Medic’s lab lying on an operating table. Medic was sitting at a desk nearby, papers strewn all over it haphazardly.

“What the fuck did you do?” Scout asked, looking back down at the stitches on his chest. He’d never had surgery before, never needed it, he would’ve thought if he’d been about to have it that he would’ve been told beforehand, apparently _not_ though.

“I opened you up to have a look at your insides,” Medic said as he stood. His tone was casual as if it were no big deal.

“ _Why_?”

“Because I can. I wanted to study your organs for scientific purposes.”

This was basically confirmation of all of Scout’s childhood fears about doctors. It wasn’t fair or right, surely there had to be rules against this kind of thing. But even if there were, Medic didn’t seem the type to follow rules.

“Oh, you’re going to cry now? I did not expect that.” Medic turned back to his desk and wrote something down on a notepad as if Scout were some alien creature he was studying instead of a human being.

“No, I’m _not_ going to cry.” Part of him wanted to and his eyes were watering but it was tears of anger and frustration more than anything else. He wanted to bash Medic’s face in with a baseball bat, the only stopping him was the lack of a baseball bat ~~and fear~~. “Where are my clothes?” He slid off the table, his bare feet hitting the floor with a slap. His legs were wobbly and felt like rubber beneath him, his mind was still cloud too but he could stand and walk at least.

“On the chair bedside you.”

Scout grunted acknowledgment as he started getting dressed. He was done with Medic’s bullshit, next time he got called in, he wouldn’t go. The only way he’d wiling go to see Medic for a doctor’s visit again was if he was dying from something.

“Oh, and be sure to take it easy for a while, you don’t want to pull your stitches,” Medic called after him as he started for the exit.

Scout’s only reply was flipping him off with both hands before leaving.

***

“We need to talk,” Engie said as soon as Medic answered the door for him.

“About what?” Medic asked, not letting him in.

“About your fascination with Scout.” Engie wasn’t the most observant among the crew but it would’ve taken someone as dumb as Soldier or drunk as Demo not to notice that something was up with Medic involving their newest crew member. It hadn’t been too big of a thing before but the latest visit had left Scout visibly upset and tired, and it had taken _hours_.

“What about it?” Medic stayed in the doorway, still not letting Engie into his office.

“First off, why are you fascinated with him?”

“I can’t tell you because I’d be partially forfeiting on a black mail opportunity if I did.”

“What in tarnation does that mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like, it’s classified info that I’m using to black mail another member of our crew with. Don’t worry, I’m not hurting Scout, just studying him for scientific purposes. He’ll be fine.” That may be true under Medic’s definition of ‘hurting’ but given the look on Scout’s face when he’d left Medic’s office earlier it wasn’t true from his viewpoint.

“Well stop it.” Engie wanted to know what this ‘classified info’ was but asking Medic wasn’t going to get him anywhere so there was no point in trying. He’d have to do his own sleuthing around later or get Spy, who probably already knew given his job description, to help him.

Medic opened his mouth to protest but Engie cut him off. “Whatever you’re doing is making him unhappy so stop. He don’t need that kind of shit in his life right now so leave him alone.”

Medic sighed as if he were being asked to bear a great burden. “Fine, I did most my tests already anyway. After I take his stitches out, I’ll be done with him for a while.”

“’Stitches’?”

“Yeah, I opened him up earlier today to study his organs. It was fascinating. I’d show you the results but it’d reveal the classified info.” No wonder Scout had been upset, that was more than a little messed up. Coming from Medic it wasn’t surprising though.

“Fine, I’ll hold you to that.” Engie gave him a pointed look before turning and leaving. He had work to get back to.

 

“Hey Spy,” Engie said once he finally found the bastard in the kitchen the next morning.

“Yes?” Spy said, turning to face him.

“What’s the deal with Medic about Scout?” And now that Engie was thinking about it… “And you too for that matter?” Spy treated Scout differently too, during the two interactions between them that Engie had been witness to, Spy had been cold towards Scout and had made a point to get out of his presence as soon as possible. Even if he wasn’t the warmest of people, he’d never been like that towards anyone else that Engie had seen.

“I don’t know what Medic’s deal is but I just don’t like him. He’s far too young for this sort of thing, he’ll get us killed.”

Engie should probably stay out of whatever this was, it reeked of drama and drama was never a good thing to get involved with. But they were a team dagnamit, they needed to work together, they’d have a much easier time doing that if they fixed whatever was happening here. And well, he was curious, Medic’s comment about the info being used for blackmail was far too intriguing to just let go. “Fine, I suppose, it ain’t my place to tell you who you can and can’t not like as long as you don’t let it get in the way of us all doing our jobs.” Engie wasn’t sure he found that to be a satisfying answer though, it didn’t feel quite right, but it wasn’t worth pursuing right now. “But what about Medic? I don’t believe for second you don’t know what’s up with him.”

“I know nothing.” Spy’s face was blank, uninterested. He was good at hiding his emotions though, it came with the territory of being able to control his entire shape. Or maybe he didn’t know, his avoidance of Scout could’ve led to him not knowing what Medic was doing to him.

“Medic performed surgery on him yesterday to ‘study his organs and…”

“He did _what_?” Finally, some emotion for Spy. And he was mad, a curious reaction from someone who claimed to actively dislike Scout.

“He performed surgery on him, unethically might I add since I doubt Scout knew that that’s what he was going in for. He was certainly very upset about it when he came out yesterday, you weren’t at dinner so course you didn’t see. And on top of that, Medic’s called him into his office multiple times. When I asked Medic why he was doing all this he told me he couldn’t say because he was using the info to blackmail another member of our crew. So, you interested in looking into it?”

“Fine, I’ll look into it,” Spy said with a sigh. “I’ll tell you if I find anything. In the meantime, tell Medic to stop.”

“Already did, it’s the reason I went to talk to him in the first place.”

Without another word, Spy left, moving silently as always. Engie watched him go before turning to start the coffeepot. He’d done his part, now it was Spy’s turn to live up to his nickname and uncover the truth.


	5. Sniper

The new guy was odd. Though that could _easily_ be said about everyone on the team, including Sniper himself. But Scout was odd in that he intentionally sought Sniper out for conversation on a fairly regular basis. Sniper didn’t _mind_ per se but… he was bad at conversation and interacting with people – he’d grown up on a small space station, he’d been the only kid there and thus hadn’t had any opportunities to make friends. But still Scout insisted on seeking him out for conversation on a fairly regular basis even outside of mealtimes.

This time when Sniper ran into him while on his way to the shooting range, he wasn’t looking too good. He looked tired, which made sense, even he had to run out of energy _sometimes_ , he also looked miserable though. But he perked up a bit when he saw Sniper.

“Hey uh… hello,” he said, perking up even more.

“Hello,” Sniper returned. Not sure what else to say and not wanting to bother him further when he already looked so exhausted – even if he was hiding it now – he went past him and continued on his way to the shooting range.

“Wait uh…” Scout said before Sniper could get far. “You know what’s up with Medic?”

Sniper turned back to face him. “No, why? What’s he doing?”

“He uh… he… You know what? Never mind, it ain’t important. But uh… where you headed?”

“Shooting range.”

“Oh uh… mind if I tag along. I’m… a bit… uh…”

“Lost?” Sniper finished for him. He’d gotten lost a bunch too when he’d first joined up. It was a big ship, bigger than it probably really needed to be given the size of the crew.

“What? No, of course not. I’m just uh… yeah, a bit.” He deflated with a sigh. “I was just wondering around and stuff… not really going anywhere, now I don’t really know where I am anymore. So uh… can I join you?”

“I guess.” Sniper shrugged, he didn’t much care. Scout could go where he liked.

Scout fell in line with Sniper as he started on his way again. He didn’t say anything as they walked which seemed odd coming from him. Normally he was chatty and vibrant.

“You okay mate?” Sniper finally asked when they reached the shooting range.

“What? Oh uh, yeah, I’m fine. Just still a bit woozy. My head feels all funny, I don’t like it.” He frowned, lifting a hand to rub his temple.

With nothing to say to that, Sniper pulled his gun out its case. It wasn’t state of the art but it was still _very_ nice, he felt at home with it in his hands.

Scout hadn’t brought his gun and thus dragged one of the chairs over so he could sit and watch Sniper practice. Sniper had never had an audience for this kind of thing before, he wasn’t sure if he liked it. But it wasn’t that big a deal, it shouldn’t affect his aim much if at all. And besides, Scout would get bored and leave soon.

Except he didn’t. He sat there, watching and looking half asleep. Sniper soon learned to zone him out, it was easy when he wasn’t chatting.

“You’re uh… pretty good at that,” he said after several minutes had gone by.

“Thanks,” Sniper grunted.

More silence and… next time Sniper glanced his way, Scout was fast asleep, slumped in his chair. Should Sniper wake him? The shooting range wasn’t a good place to sleep and there was no way he was comfortable. But on the other hand, if he was falling asleep here then it had to be because he was in desperate need of sleep. So letting him be was for the best, right?

With a sigh, Sniper lowered his gun and placed it on the counter. He then moved the other two chairs in the room right next to Scout’s chair, making a makeshift bench. He then gently moved Scout so that he was lying down instead of sitting up. It wasn’t the greatest setup but it would do, hopefully he’d appreciate it.

Sniper went back to focusing on the shooting range. He probably didn’t need to practice quite as much as he was but he didn’t have much else to do until they reached their destination.


	6. Keeping Secrets

A not so quick look through Medic’s lab revealed everything medical he’d found out about Scout. Which was quite a lot, especially after the surgery he’d performed, of which there were multiple pictures of. They were weird and uncomfortable to look at and thus Spy tried not to for longer than was absolutely necessary.

The whole thing was rather anger inducing. It was unethical all around and the fact that it was his son who was the victim of it made it personal. He wasn’t going to say anything to Medic about it though, Engie had already done that and the less Spy had to talk to Medic about that stuff, the better. He was just curious about what exactly Medic was doing.

Once satisfied with his investigation he made sure everything was exactly how he’d found it. Such tasks were made easier when everything _wasn’t_ an unorganized mess but he managed anyway. Even if it wasn’t perfect, the chances of Medic noticing that something was off with how cluttered his desk and computer files were, was low.

The lab door opened and Spy immediately went invisible as he stepped back from Medic’s desk. It was Medic off course, who else would have reason to go into his lab in the middle of the night?

“Spy, I know I caught a glimpse of you as you vanished,” he said as he stepped in. He was holding a mug of what was probably coffee given the time of day. “I was actually expecting you after the latest examination I did on Scout. I’m sure you’re mad at me about it but I assure you I did not hurt him.”

It wasn’t worth the effort to reply to him, nothing more needed to be discussed about this situation that Engie probably hadn’t already covered. So instead, Spy snuck up and edged past him, careful not to touch him. He then dissolved his form so he could get under the crack in the door without trouble.

“Ignore me and run away then,” Medic said as if he knew what Spy was doing. “Coward.” That wasn’t the first time someone had called him a coward nor was it likely to be the last, Spy had long since grown past being annoyed by such a petty insult.

 

“You find out anything about the thing with Medic and Scout yet?” Engie asked, speaking in a whisper. It had to have come up eventually so Spy wasn’t surprised, especially since Engie had sought him out in his room after everyone had gone to bed.

“No, not yet,” Spy lied.

“All right, fair enough. Just tell me when you do, ‘kay?” Engie’s curiosity was no doubt eating at him. Which he of course couldn’t be blamed for, any even half way sane person would be curious. It was _entirely_ Medic’s fault for mentioning the fact that it was a blackmail thing. _Why_ had he felt the need to do that? Had he been _trying_ to make Spy’s life more difficult? It wouldn’t be surprising if the answer was ‘yes’.

“Okay.”

Engie nodded before leaving, heading back to his own room. Chances of him dropping it anytime soon weren’t good, Spy would have to fabricate a plausible lie before he figured out Spy was the one involved.

Except, it was the very next day when Engie came to talk to him about it again. “It’s you, isn’t it?” he said as he met up with Spy in the kitchen – he’d started having breakfast earlier to avoid Scout, which unfortunately had the side effect of making it easy to find him alone for a chat in the morning. “You’re the one Medic’s blackmailing, right?”

Spy could try to deny it but would that work on someone as smart as Engie supposedly was? And was it even worth the effort? Saying ‘no’ would just invite Engie to keep digging for answers. So… “Yes,” he admitted with a sigh, rolling his eyes – a habit he’d picked up from spending so much time with humans.

“And let me guess, you ain’t going to say anything more than that.”

“No, I will not so don’t ask me to.”

Engie frowned and crossed his arms. “Fine, but I need to know, is it something that’s going to effect our team in any way?”

“It shouldn’t.” Spy would do his best to make sure it didn’t. “It’s a private matter and has nothing to do with anyone else here. You don’t need worry about it.”

“Why does Medic know?”

“I can’t tell you that without revealing what it is. But even my deal with him shouldn’t affect anyone else and thus shouldn’t affect the team as a whole either.”

Engie frowned even harder before letting out a resigned sigh. “All right,” he said, “since there ain’t no way I can get you talk about it, I’ll chose to trust you on this because we’re a team now, I don’t got much choice. Promise you’ll tell if it ever _does_ become an issue though.”

“It won’t but fine, if it’ll make you feel better, I promise I’ll tell you if starts to affect anyone else.” Promising that was the least he could in repayment of how easily Engie was dropping it. Which was a smart move of course, nothing short of the threat of death would get him to tell right now, but getting pestered about it would’ve been annoying and a huge waste of time and energy for both of them.

“Good,” Engie said, holding out his hand for Spy to shake. Spy did so, humans for some reason put a lot meaning into the gesture, Engie wouldn’t trust his word if he didn’t.

“I won’t tell no one about it of course, promise” Engie continued as they let go of each other’s hands. “So, you don’t worry about that.”

“Good, thank you.” Spy gave him a regal nod of his head before moving on. That was one less problem he had to deal with. If only the big problem could be dealt with so quickly and easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this might be the beginning of a Spy/Engie plot thread. I'm not 100% sure yet but I do like that ship and alien/human relationships so we shall see.


	7. Pyro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted write from Pyro's POV because he's always been one of my favs to write and so I have.

They were on their way at last, heading to the place their mysterious employer wanted them to fight over. Pyro was excited to see it, the more places in the galaxy he got to see, the better. It was still a long way away though, it would take _weeks_ to get there. Weeks being a relative term measured by the ship’s artificial day/night cycle put in place to preserve the sanity of the crew. It was going by Earth time even though most of the crew wasn’t _from_ Earth but whatever, Pyro didn’t care.

They’d left the little colony planet just yesterday and Pyro was already bored. He couldn’t play with fire while the ship was traveling through space, it was too dangerous and the slightest hint of smoke set off the fire suppressant systems, which sucked. So, he had to find other ways to entertain himself during travel. Hanging out with the new guy wasn’t an option since he didn’t understand sign language yet so getting to know him better would have to wait. He’d have to hang out with someone else.

Which was how he ended up wondering into Engie’s lab. Engie was always working on something interesting in here and today was no exception, pieces of something were laid out on Engie’s work table.

“What are you working on?” Pyro signed as Engie looked up at him, standing in the entrance of his lab.

“Same thing as last time, a sentry gun,” Engie replied.

“Can I watch?” Pyro didn’t know much about engineering stuff but it was often fun to watch Engie work anyway. He was _very_ good at what he did and so far he didn’t seem to think any less of Pyro for not being as knowledgeable, unlike many people Pyro had encountered in the past.

“Sure.”

Pyro clapped and closed the lab door before skipping in to watch.

As he worked, Engie explained what he was doing. Pyro didn’t quite understand a lot of it – heck he didn’t even know what some of the words meant – but he appreciated the effort Engie put into explaining it anyway. And Engie’s voice was nice to listen, Pyro didn’t know the accent but he liked it.

 

Next, he wanted to hang out with Spy because he had very important question to ask him. Finding him was difficult since he didn’t want to be found but Pyro was good at that type of thing and eventually found him hiding on the Captains deck.

Pyro greeted him with a wave, skipping right up to him. “Why are you afraid of Scout?”

Spy gave him a glare, offended. “I am not afraid of Scout.”

“Then why do you run away from him every time he goes into the same room as you?” Even _Pyro_ had noticed that odd behaviour.

“I’m not running away from him. I just don’t like him and don’t approve of his presence on this ship and on our team.”

“Why?”

“He’s too young for this, he’ll get us killed.”

That didn’t seem quite right. Pyro wasn’t good at judging people’s ages, human or alien, so he couldn’t say for sure but he was pretty sure only adults would be hired for this type of work and he trusted Miss Pauling to be able judge that sort of thing accurately. Also, he trusted her in general to hire the right guy for the job. It was part of her job description to do that sort of thing after all, right?

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have places to be.” Spy vanished and Pyro stood there, listening to his near silent footsteps go away. Fine, he could be weird and mean if he wanted to be, Pyro would just make up for it by being extra friendly with Scout.

 

“Uh… sorry pal, I’m learning and stuff but I still don’t really… got it quite yet,” Scout said later when Pyro tried to talk to him again after hunting him down and finding him in the rec room playing cards with Demo and Soldier.

“He was asking why Spy’s afraid of you,” Demo translated. “Honestly I’d like to know that too.”

“Wait, Spy’s afraid of Scout?” Soldier asked.

Pyro nodded a ‘yes’.

“He ain’t afraid of me,” was what Scout said though. “He just doesn’t like me for some reason, I don’t know why.”

“He seems afraid to me,” Pyro signed. Maybe, Pyro wasn’t good at judging those types of things but Spy was definitely hiding something. He was too uptight about it for it be anything else.

“So, you’re saying he’s a coward?” Soldier cut in. “I will not tolerate a coward on my team.” He placed his cards down on the table and marched off.

“Oh, Spy’s in for a scolding. I got to go watch this.” Demo placed his cards down too and followed Soldier out, leaving just Scout and Pyro.

“Welp, uh… I guess I’ll go too,” Scout said as he gathered up the cards. “See you later I guess.” He didn’t sound like he was particularly looking forward to it.

Pyro watched him go. He’d wanted to play cards, surely Scout didn’t need to be able to fully understand him in order for them to play cards together, right? But he clearly didn’t want to and there was nothing Pyro could do about that. He’d just have to find someone else to hangout with then. Or maybe he could go watch Soldier yell at Spy about how he needed to stop being a coward. That would be funny. So, Pyro got up and ran off in the direction Soldier and Demo had gone down.

Unfortunately, by the time Pyro arrived, Spy had already pulled one of his vanishing acts. It was so unfair that he could go invisible while the rest of them couldn’t, Pyro wanted to be able to do that. He could have so much fun sneaking up on people and spooking them. Oh well, he’d just have to find someone else to bother. Medic was a good candidate, he was often doing something interesting in his lab and didn’t seem to mind when Pyro watched him.


	8. Aliens

“Good afternoon,” Medic said with a false smile as soon as Scout answered the knock on his door to find him standing there.

“What do you want?” Scout frowned at him, not even needing to exaggerate his displeasure. He’d been going out of his way to avoid Medic at all costs – putting at least as much effort into it as Spy was putting into avoiding him – and now he was showing up at Scout’s room like it was no big deal.  

“Your stitches need removing and you won’t answer my summons over the intercom. So come on, let’s go.”

“Uh no, I ain’t going anywhere with you.”

“You want to keep the stitches in forever then?”

They did itch and were a real pain in the ass. But he wouldn’t _have_ them if wasn’t for Medic’s insanity. “Take them out here then, I ain’t going to your office or lab or whatever the fuck it is.” That would be tantamount to inviting Medic to do something else fucked up to him.

Medic sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine, if you must, it’s faster that way anyway. Take off your shirt.”

Scout glanced first one way down the hall and then the other way. No one was there but they could come at any time. “In my room,” he said, stepping back so Medic could enter. The last thing he wanted was Medic in his room but he’d managed to keep the stitches a secret from everyone else, he didn’t want to break that now.

“Very well.” Medic stepped in and closed the door behind him. He looked around the room as if expecting something interesting, frowning when he was inevitably disappointed. “Now chop, chop, I got places to be.”

With a groan, Scout slipped his shirt off over his head. This was the _last_ time he’d let Medic touch him unless it was a life or death situation.

 

Thankfully it was over quite quickly. It left him feeling rather displeased though, his art mood ruined for the day. So as soon as he was free and sure Medic wasn’t going to follow him and perhaps try to do something nefarious, he went in search of Sniper to serve as a distraction.

Being well acquainted with the ship’s layout and sort of knowing Sniper meant it didn’t take Scout long to find him. He was chilling the rec room playing what looked like solitaire.

“Howdy,” Scout said as he sat across from him. He’d picked up the greeting from Engie, it sounded odd and kind of funny so Scout liked it.

“Howdy,” Sniper returned, laying down a card and not even glancing up at Scout. That was fine though, didn’t mean he wasn’t paying attention or didn’t want to talk… probably. He was one of the hardest people to read Scout had ever encountered.

“So uh… we’re getting close to place we’re going to take over or whatever.” There was a counter in the central control room counting down the ‘days’ until they got there, there was only a week left. “That’s cool, right?”

“Yep.”

“I’ve never been on another planet before. You think there’ll be aliens?” Hopefully there would be, Scout had always wanted to meet an alien. From what he’d heard they were quite common in the busier parts of the galaxy.

“I don’t know, possibly.”

“Have you ever met any aliens?”

“Other than Spy, I don’t think so.”

“Oh, that’s… wait what? Did you just say ‘other than Spy?’” Surely, he’d heard wrong, right?

Sniper finally titled his head up to look at Scout. “Uh… you don’t know Spy’s an alien?”

“What? No? I didn’t know that. How the fuck is he an alien?” Aliens were supposed to be _different_ from humans, not look exactly like them.

“He’s a shapeshifter, that’s his preferred shape or something, I think, I don’t really know. He can go invisible too.”

Scout had heard of shapeshifters before, apparently they were rather rare. “Dammit.” He pounded his fist on the table. “That means the first alien I’ve ever met doesn’t like me.” For no reason too, how unfair.

Sniper shrugged as he nudged the rows of cards on the table back in place. “Sorry mate. I really don’t know what his problem is with you.”

“Well, whatever. I don’t care. He can go fuck himself and jump off a bridge.” Scout didn’t need to care that one of his new team mates didn’t like him for no solid reason, people disliked him all the time, he could live with that.

 

Later though he found himself knocking on Spy’s door. It was next door to his. At first it seemed like he wasn’t going to answer or wasn’t in but then the door opened and he stood before Scout, looking down on him with a blank expression under his ski mask.

“What do you want?” he asked, his tone hollow.

“I want to know why you hate me so much.” Scout had a right to ask, right? Since he hadn’t done anything.

“I don’t hate you, I would just rather not talk to you.” And… he closed the door in Scout’s face.

“Well fuck you too then asshole.” Scout flipped off the door before leaving. That’s what he got for trying to make amends with someone who disliked him for simply existing.

***

Spy sighed as he listened to Scout stomp off. He was making one his worst fears a reality; his son was starting to hate him. But what was he supposed to do? In his desire to avoid the situation he’d set a precedent of avoiding Scout as if that could make the problem go away somehow. It couldn’t of course, this was something he was just going to have to live with probably at least until their contracts expired or the war they were heading for ended. So he’d just carry on as before and hope his secret never got out.


	9. Destination

The general buzz of excitement as they neared their destination got to even Medic. He’d finished all his preparations ages ago, he was more than ready to start working for real. He was tempted to experiment more on Scout to pass the time and for science, alien human hybrids were rather rare and thus warranted much research, but he couldn’t rock the proverbial boat again so soon. The last thing he needed was for half the team to be mad at him.

So, he was left to sit and stew in anticipation along with everyone else instead. Not even going over his medical records on everyone, including Scout helped ease the boredom after the fifth or sixth time going over it. He didn’t have one on Pyro, he could try to get one but Pyro wasn’t going to cooperate. The only way Medic would be getting anything from him was if he was injured bad enough to need medical assistance. If such an opportunity arose, he’d be sure take advantage of it, until then though he was stuck.

All these frustrations added up to make reaching their destination a _huge_ relief. Scout was the first through the door leading to the gangplank as soon as the light above it when green, signaling they were free to disembark. Everyone else followed, Sniper and Spy bringing up the rear.

After being cooped up in the ship for weeks, the fresh air and light breeze felt great as Medic stepped outside. It carried a strange scent with it but it wasn’t unpleasant. They’d no doubt get used to it in a few days.

Ignoring Scout’s babble about how cool this was, Medic glanced around their new surroundings as everyone else joined them. The ship dock was connected to a building that presumably going to act as their headquarters for their mercenary endeavors while they were stationed here until it was time to move base. Above them, the sun was out and high in the sky, larger than Earth’s sun. It was hot and the sky was a deeper blue than Earth’s sky. Though it was perhaps possible that it had been so long since Medic had seen Earth’s sky that he’d forgotten what it looked like exactly.

There were no windows or doors leading to outside from the dock, they’d have to go though the attached building to find out. So, what kind of landscape they’d expect to be fighting in was still an unknown. It certainly wasn’t an icy or snowy one though, that was good.

Once they were all gathered in front of the ship’s gangplank, Miss Pauling clapped her hand together to get their attention. She had to do it twice to get Scout to shut up. “We are here and we are early, um, go us, I guess. I uh… really don’t know what there is for you guys to do now. So, I guess just chill and wait for orders for now. _I_ don’t get any time off but you guys do so go have fun, don’t wonder too far away, we don’t know when our enemy will get here.”

 

Exploring the building didn’t take long, it was mostly empty, there to serve as shelter outside of the ship which was their true base. Presumably there’d be other such facilities elsewhere at other important locations they’d need to base themselves at. Medic’s reading of the situation suggested this wasn’t a small-scale operation, this was undoubtedly not the only place they’d be stationed at.

Outside was a desert, the sand a deep red colour that contrasted nicely with the dark blue of the sky. The plant life was made up of big purple stalky plants like a mix between a cactus and a large coral plant scattered around. The larger ones had flowers and what looked like fruit growing off them. Medic collected samples of everything he could with tweezers and little bags he carried just this purpose, he’d experiment with them later for potential harmful or beneficial effects.

A short distance away from what was essentially their base’s parking spot was a river. It was wide and deep, things swam in it but they were moving much to fast for Medic to get a good look at them. On the other side was another building very similar to their own except blue instead of red and its space dock was empty. Presumably it was the enemy base, they were here to fight over the same thing after all. It was surprisingly close which was odd but whatever, from everything Medic had gathered this whole situation was odd. It was a job though, as long as he got paid and was free to experiment on his teammates – often to their benefit so it was a hundred percent allowed… probably – he didn’t care.

There was what was most likely a town/settlement visible on the horizon. They’d have to investigate what was up with that later when they had time. Luckily there was garage with a car in it. It was big enough to hold everyone but also shabby and old enough that even Medic could recognize that fact at a glance. With how expensive the base ship was you’d think their boss could provide them with better ground transportation but apparently not.

Overall Medic wasn’t too impressed with this planet until night came. It came rapidly, the sun moved rather fast in the sky. Everyone else going outside to see the stars drew his attention enough to step outside again too.

In the sky above them there was not one or two but _three_ moons. Three different sizes, the largest of which was more than twice the size of Earth’s full moon, even the smallest one looked bigger. It made for a rather well-lit night and they rose steadily in the sky, one after the other with the smallest one in the lead.

“That’s fucking amazing,” Scout said, speaking far louder than was necessary. “Is this normal? Do lots of planets have moons like this? And since this is like an alien planet does that mean we get to come up with the constellations and name them and stuff? Assuming we’re the first humans here anyway” He went on, asking all sorts of questions and not giving anyone time to even begin to try to answer. His enthusiasm and energy were impressive, hopefully he’d be able to retain them once the fighting and war started properly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was also an adventure in me trying to describe an alien landscape. Describing scenery and stuff like that isn't something I do a lot, I should probably practice it more which is part of why this chapter exists.
> 
> I kinda wanted to attempt to write a space battle before this though (if you somehow haven't picked up on it, the mercs are capable in both grounded gunfights and space battles with small spaceships and stuff) but I chickened out. I do intend to attempt writing one eventually, if you never see it happen it's because I tried and failed. Fight scenes are hard to write and I've only ever written fairly small ones with magic being the main weapon, one in space would be even harder so please forgive me if I can't do it. I also want to try writing a gunfight too, same deal as before though, I'll try but if you don't see it, it's because I failed.


	10. Town

It took Engie only a few hours to fix the biggest issues with the van in the garage, allowing the nine of them to head off to the town visible on the horizon. They sort of snuck off without telling Miss Pauling. She hadn’t expressly forbidden them from going anywhere but she also hadn’t said they were free to go wherever they pleased, making the venture questionably allowed at best.

Demo had considered suggesting they ask her first, she was their boss after all, but hadn’t because no one else was mentioning that they probably should. No doubt many of the others had had the same thought and similarly dismissed it for the same or similar reason. They had a right to explore their new environment before starting work for real, right? It was a whole new planet after all, how could they be expected to resist exploring at least a little bit especially where there was an obvious alien town right close by? Unless it was a human settlement, which was possible, this obviously wasn’t the first time humans had come here. Either way they had a right to explore it.

Engie, being the one to fix the car had won the unquestionable right to drive it. Spy was in the passenger seat, he’d taken it while everyone else except for Sniper, Pyro, and Heavy had argued over it, he was an asshole like that. Leaving the rest of them to pile in the back. It was a bit crowded, especially the back row where Heavy sat but they made do. Scout’s chatter made for background noise in place of a radio.

Demo was lucky enough to get a window seat. Through it he saw the town’s sign as they drove by. It looked like it was made of a whiteish stone with black ‘lettering’ – it looked more like scribbles than anything else – on it, probably an alien language. Meaning the town they were headed for _was_ an alien town, exciting news.

Engie drove into the middle of town and parked. There weren’t any parking spots, he just sort of parked off to the side. They all piled out of the car to greet the natives gathering around to investigate – hopefully they weren’t hostile.

“The lizardmen are real, I _knew_ it,” Soldier said – more like shouted – as soon as he out of the van. “Watch out everyone, they can suck out your brains and turn you into one of their slaves.”

“Uh buddy,” Demo said taking Soldier’s arm. “I don’t think you got to worry about them, they ain’t lizardmen, they’re aliens.”

‘Lizardmen’ wasn’t a terrible descriptor for them though. They were scaly and did kind of look like upright lizards. Their faces were too flat though, their large round eyes placed on their heads similar to how a human’s would be, and they lacked tails. Their scales were a bit too shiny and backwards, running up their bodies instead of down. They were various shades of red presumably to blend in with the sand. Said camouflage was ruined by their brightly colour clothing though, there was a lot of pink and purple but there were some bright blues and greens too. All of which combined to make them look pretty ridiculous especially since they were all rather short and stocky.

Before anyone else could say anything or attempt to communicate with them, Pyro jumped forward and started signing to them. His hand motions were slow at first but quickly picked up as he evidently grew more confident with it. Demo couldn’t see super well from where he stood but from what he could see it was clear that Pyro wasn’t using the same sign language he used with the team. Which by itself was odd but what was even odder was that the several of the lizard-alien-men responded, making weird almost chirping noises before one of them stepped forward and started signing back, using six fingered hands.

“What’s he saying to them?” Scout asked. “And like why would they know sign language?”

“Uh… we don’t know what he’s saying,” Engie answered.

“Yeah, I ain’t never seen those signs before,” Demo added.

“So… Pyro knows alien sign language too?” Scout asked.

“Looks like it,” Soldier said. “Tell them if they try to suck any of our brains out or anal probe us we’ll blow up their entire village and plant Earth’s flag here instead.”

Pyro jumped back around to sign at them in the language _they_ all knew. “I told them we come in peace and explained why we’re here. They’re cool with it as long as we leave them out of our war and don’t kill them or maim them. One of them said they’ll eat us if we do. I told them we don’t taste good but I don’t think they care.”

“Where’d you learn to communicate with them?” Spy asked, crossing his arms and glaring at Pyro.

Pyro shrugged. “I met one once, they taught me. But it means I get to be useful now.” He clapped his hands and did a little dance.

“This isn’t fair,” Scout pouted. “He’s moving his hands too fast so even if he’s using signs I know I can’t understand them.”

“Ugh,” Spy complained right back. “Someone translate for him and then let’s explore, it might be important that we know the layout of this town. Unfortunately, we have to stay as a group since only one of us is capable of communicating with the natives right now.”

 

Despite Spy being the one to mention they needed to stay as a group he vanished almost as soon as they started exploring. Demo might not have noticed if he wasn’t looking out for that exact thing; they’d been on the same team long enough now that Demo knew what was up with him. Whether he was still with them and invisible, had peeled off to explore on his own, or had changed his form to blend in with the small group of locals following them was hard to say though. Nor did it really matter, he was a sneaky bastard no matter which it was.

What did matter though was if this town had a bar. If so, would Demo be able to drink the alcohol these lizard-alien-men drank without dying? Even more importantly, would he be able to get drunk off it? Well, there was only one way to find out.

“Pyro, ask them if they have a bar and alcohol.”

“Now is not the time to get drunk,” Heavy said.

“No, no,” Medic countered, making a calm down gesture towards Heavy. “It’s important to test and I want to know what it does to him. I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t kill him.”

Heavy sighed but seemed to give in. And if anyone else had a complaint they didn’t voice it either. Good that made things easier.

Pyro had been signing to the lizard-alien-man – ‘man’ wasn’t a good word for them, was it? since they weren’t human – who was acting as their guide according to him and now turned to face Demo again, walking backwards without even changing pace. Wonders never seemed to cease with him. “They said they do. They also said if you don’t have money for it you won’t get any even if you are an alien human.”

“Fuck.” It was doubtful they’d take the currency from his home planet which was all he had on him right now. But this just proved that bar and innkeepers were the same everywhere no matter their species, they weren’t willing to give out free drinks just because. An understandable response really but still a pain when one was broke and needed a drink. Hopefully they’d take the universal currency they’d be getting for this job so he could try again once they got their first paycheck which should be soon. Until then he had plenty of alcohol aboard the ship, it should last for a few more months at least.

 

The town turned out to be rather small and lacking in technology. These lizard-aliens hadn’t even figured out space travel yet on their own yet. The most high-tech thing they had were teleporters, not even high-tech ones. They were like two steps above being cavemen.

As suspected all the buildings were made out of the same milky white stone that had made up the sign they’d passed upon entering town. There wasn’t much ornamentation on them, Demo wasn’t even sure which buildings served as housing and which served other functions. He did ask Pyro to have the bar pointed out to them though. He made a point to remember its exterior when that request was granted, hopefully he’d be able to use that information soon.

While they were exploring, Scout asked all sorts of questions. Pyro translated them to their guide and then replied to Scout, moving his hands significantly slower than usual for Scout’s benefit. From there anything Scout didn’t understand Engie or Heavy translated for him. Finding the slow pace of the conversation frustrating, Demo barely paid attention to it. He spent more time chatting with Soldier about various things.

By the time they returned to the car, the moons were rising and the temperature was rapidly dropping. The lizard-aliens had scuttled off to return to their homes. And Spy had rejoined the group, coming in seemingly when no one else was looking as Demo had just turned his head to look at something and Spy was just sort of there again, sneaky bastard.


	11. Respawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And at long last this fic earns it's M rating and 'Graphic Depictions of Violence' warning. I had the general idea for this chapter before I started the fic itself, hence the rating and warning being there from the start. If you can't tell from the title, some non-permanent character death happens in this chapter.

The Respawn Chamber was a small white room. Engie wouldn’t have thought much of it if Miss Pauling’s message about it hadn’t explained its purpose as well as instructions/orders on how to set it up. He’d knew of technology that extended one’s life – indefinitely in the right circumstances – but never anything like this. He wanted to take it apart and see how it functioned.

But he wouldn’t even know where to begin with such a task. There were no obvious panels to serve as entry points to its inner workings. He would’ve still tried though if it wasn’t for the explicit order – aimed specifically at him no doubt – to not tamper with it. So, he’d have to refrain from messing with it for now. If he ever got even half a chance though, he’d jump on it.

It beeped as it finished scanning him – a process that had taken about five minutes or so – and the door reopened, allowing him to step out and rejoin the others. They’d all already had their turn in the room, Engie had volunteered to go last, and were all gathered around now.

“So, uh… we can’t die now?” Scout asked.

“Nah, we can die,” Demo said. “We just come back when we do… assuming this thing works the way Miss Pauling said it does anyway.”

“We should test it,” Medic chimed in. “Any volunteers?” He pulled a needle and syringe out of his pocket.

“What the hell is that?” Scout said, speaking aloud what Engie was thinking. Surely not even someone like Medic would carry around a syringe full of a deadly substance just for the sake of it… right?

“A powerful anesthesia that should be deadly in this large of a dose.” Welp, apparently Medic would carry something like that around. At this point Engie shouldn’t be surprised anymore, he was clearly a lunatic. “So, who wants to test the Respawn Chamber?”

There were understandably no volunteers. Someone needed to test it though, it was looking like Medic might be willing to force someone to. The risk of it not working though was pretty severe, Engie was willing to go far pretty far for the sake of science but asking someone else to risk their life for it didn’t sit well with him. … They could test it on an animal perhaps.

Before he could suggest that though, Medic made a strangled sound of pain. Engie’s gaze snapped back to him. Spy had stabbed him in the back. His body fell to the floor with a thump, the syringe full of anesthesia rolled out of his hand and across the floor.

“Y-you _killed_ him!” Scout said, all colour drained from his face as he stared at Medic’s corpse. Poor boy probably hadn’t seen many people die before, if at all. When faced with it in truth he was either going to have hardened up or crumble and retire from his line of work before it had even truly began.

“That is _treason_ ,” Soldier said, stepping forward. “You’re…”

“Now, now,” Spy cut him off, calm as ever. “We’re testing to see if the Respawn Chamber works. He was asking for volunteers so I volunteered. If it doesn’t work then we’re down a doctor but I’m sure we could do without if we really had to.” Spy would also be free of the blackmail thing Medic had over him which is probably another reason why he’d done it.

“Oh uh… all right then,” Soldier said, stepping back to his place by Demo. “When will we know if it works?”

“Soon, I imagine.”

All eight of them stood in dead silence, watching the red splotch in Medic’s lab coat spread out from the knife wound in his back. It was right where his heart was, his death had to have been almost instant. The smell of blood was something Engie had almost forgotten – his machines normally took care of people for him, thus it had been a while since he’d been in such close proximity to a dead body.

“What if he doesn’t come back?” Scout asked. He managed to get his composure back at least, that or he was good at faking it which was a good first step at learning to deal with intense situations. “If he doesn’t what are…”

Medic’s body vanished. One second it was there, the next it was gone, leaving no trace behind other than the syringe lying on the floor.

“Holy fuck,” Demo said, echoing what everyone else was probably thinking.

“I think that means it works,” Spy said, sounding not at all surprised or disappointed as if he’d known this exact thing would happen. Did he _really_ feel that way though? He was an intriguing mystery to say the least, almost as intriguing as this Respawn Chamber.

Another maybe thirty seconds or so passed before the door opened and Medic rejoined them looking hale and hearty albeit severally annoyed. Everyone just stared at him for a second or two before Pyro started clapping.

He sighed and huffed, though some of the tension left his posture. “At least Pyro is happy I’m back.” He bent down to pick up the syringe and put it back in his coat pocket. “Who did that though?”

“Spy,” Soldier said, pointing to the culprit.

“I should’ve known. Fuck you.” Medic flipped Spy off before pushing past everyone and exiting.

Spy’s answering smile was smug and satisfied. “I guess that settles it then. The Respawn Chamber works, we need not fear death any longer. I don’t know about the rest of you but this has so far proven to be the most interesting job I’ve ever taken. Now I must bid you all adieu.” He gave them all a gentlemanly bow before leaving as well.

“Smug bastard,” Scout scoffed before the rest of them followed suit, quickly dispersing.

 

Engie gave it a couple hours before seeking Medic out. He was back in his lab on the ship. He looked up as Engie entered.

Engie closed the door and strode over to stand in front of his desk. “When you died, did you see anything?” he asked, not wasting any time with greetings or small talk.

“Not that I can remember,” Medic replied as he closed whatever he’d been looking at on his computer. “I just felt a brief instant of pain and then I was opening my eyes in the Respawn Chamber. I didn’t even have any sense that time had passed.”

“So, this means there’s for sure nothing after death?” That age-old question had finally been answered?

“Not necessarily. If I did see anything, I could’ve forgotten it. Also, I wasn’t dead for long so no, I don’t think that question’s quite answered yet. Would you like to see for yourself?”

The Respawn Chamber had already been proven to work so… “Sure.” He needed see how it worked for himself on top of his curiosity about what it would be like to die.

“Very good.” Medic looked quite pleased as he stood. “Follow me.”

He led the way out of his lab and to his examination room. Where he gestured for Engie to sit on the examination table. “Arm,” he said as he took out what was presumably the syringe from earlier.

Engie held his arm ready, ignoring the voice in the back of his head telling him to not do this. It was for science and every time he ignored that voice, it got quieter – if he kept this kind of stuff up, it would soon be gone – making it easy to do.

The needle was cold as Medic skillfully inserted it into his vein. He pressed the plunger, emptying it all into him in one go.

“How long?” Engie asked as Medic withdrew.

“Not long, just relax.”

Engie leaned back against the wall. True to Medic’s word, it wasn’t long before darkness crept in on his vision. He embraced it, letting himself drift off into it.

Bright light was suddenly visible through his closed eyes. He opened them to see the Respawn Chamber’s now familiar interior. A shiver ran down his spine; he’d died and come back to life. Like Medic had said, he didn’t even have any sense that time had passed. He was even standing up now, odd.

But also like Medic, he hadn’t seen anything. There really truly wasn’t anything after death or he just couldn’t remember it or was just not dead long enough to experience it. There was no way to know for sure which it was and thus he’d have to go back to purposefully not thinking about it.

 

“You’re joking, right?” Spy asked when Engie told him about it the next day. They were both up rather early and had ran into each other while walking around outside, enjoying the fresh and vast amount of space around them after weeks trapped in the ship. Engie had told him mostly to make conversation. “You really let Medic kill you?”

“Yep, sure did.”

“ _Why_?”

“I was curious.”

The look Spy gave him in response had Engie bursting out laughing. It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten such a look nor was it likely to be the last. He loved getting that reaction though.

“Humans,” Spy scoffed, quickly recovering from his shock. “I swear you’re all crazy.”

“We ain’t all crazy, most of us got sense. _I_ don’t but most of us do.” Engie said as his laughter died down. “Surely some of your people are insane too.”

“Yes, but they are few and far between. I’ve met far more insane humans than I have sane ones. Your species is just naturally bonkers.” He made a dismissive hand gesture that others may have found offensive.

“Tell me, among your people are you considered one of the sane ones?” As far as Engie was aware he’d never met another shapeshifter but he couldn’t imagine them all being like Spy. His preferred shape was a human one after all, that couldn’t be normal, could it?

The long pause before Spy answered was basically answer enough. “No, among my people, I am not considered ‘sane’.” He even lifted his hands to make air quotes. “Killing and spying is not a profession many of us go into despite how well suited we are for it. I am still more sane than you lot however.”

“If you say so.”

Spy’s only response was another dignified scoff.


	12. First Kill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at me, following every writer's dream and only writing the exact bits and scenes I want to write. Y'all are smart cookies though, you can use your imagination to fill in the gaps.
> 
> Back when I was writing the first chapter and wrote the part where it mentioned Scout hadn't killed anyone before I realized with excitement that I'd get to write that first kill. I thought it'd include a proper battle but I'm lazy and didn't want to write it so I didn't. (I'm allowing myself to be lazy in that way with this fic as that's the only way I can write it. I'd lose motivation for it if I had to write all the interconnecting things between and leading up to the parts I actually want to write. So please just bear with me on that front.)
> 
> Also, I didn't realize until recently I didn't write their first interaction with the Administrator, whoops. I guess I could go back and do that, this fic doesn't need to be in 100% chronological order after all. I don't know if I want to bother though since it's probably not going to be a super interesting scene. If I feel like it I guess I will, otherwise I'll just leave it as it is.

Scout liked to talk a big game and he’d seen as well as taken part in combat and gunfights multiple times in his life due to the crowd he’d chosen to run with – his mom didn’t now and hopefully never would. One thing he’d never done though was kill someone, injured yes, a couple times, he’d even seen a guy get killed once via getting his neck snapped – that had _not_ been fun. But he’d never actually killed someone himself, never even had the intent to. That… was no longer true though.

Blood pooled around the body at his feet. Scout had literally blasted the dude’s face off, all that remained was bits of skull and mushy brain matter. Scout’s insides roiled at the sight of it and yet he couldn’t look away. The strong copper stench of blood only made him feel sicker. What was perhaps even worse though was that some blood and perhaps something worse had splashed onto Scout too. He could feel it on his _face_ , warm and _awful_.

His body rebelling finally broke his paralysis as he stumbled off a short way to vomit in the sand as he fell to his knees. _Thankfully_ , he was by himself – he’d been sent around to flank and scout as was his main job – he’d rather die than let the others see him like this.

By the time he was done throwing up he was shaky and his throat was raw and aching. He glanced over at the corpse again…  Nope, he stopped himself just in time.

No more looking at the corpse. He was going to get up, brush himself off and continue his mission and pretend like this never happened. Except when he stood up, he was still shaking like a life and the taste in his mouth coupled with the lingering scent of blood and death made him feel nauseous still. How could he _possibly_ get back to work like this?

“You’ll get used to it.”

He snapped his head to side to see that Spy had suddenly come bedside him. Shit! Of all people to see this only Sniper would’ve been worse.

“I’m not…”

“It’s fine,” Spy interrupted. “That’s how most humans react the first time they kill someone or see another human’s brain. You’ll get used to it though, trust me. Here, take this.” He held out something he’d been carrying: a water bottle.

Scout wanted to decline and insist he didn’t need nor want it but… the urge to clean out his mouth was too strong. He grabbed it and used half of it to rinse out his mouth as best he could and downed the rest of it. He felt a bit better, still shaky though. He almost glanced over at the corpse again but again stopped himself. It was possible the corpse wasn’t even there anymore if the enemy team had a Respawn Chamber too. It’d be nice if they _did_ have one, it would mean Scout hadn’t killed someone permanently. But risking a peek when he was still one nasty sight away from vomiting again wasn’t worth it.

“Come,” Spy said, gesturing for Scout move away. Scout did, he didn’t want to be here anymore anyway. “Now sit.” Again, Scout obeyed, plopping down in the sand, grateful for a rest. “Good, rest for a bit.”

“Wait,” Scout said as Spy turned to go. “What’s this about?”

Spy turned back to face him. “What’s what about?”

“This.” Scout gestured uselessly towards Spy. There were the sounds of gunfire a short distance away, the battle. “You’re like… being _nice_ to me? What’s that about? You hate me. And why are you even here, shouldn’t you be doing spy things?”

“I never said I hated you. If you’d prefer me _not_ being nice to you, I can comply.”

“Uh… no, this is fine. … Thank you.” Regardless of anything else Scout was grateful. And he wasn’t in the mood to fight or argue. “Please don’t tell the others.” Especially Sniper.

“I won’t.”

“You never said why you’re here though?”

Spy shrugged. “I just happened to be the area as I did my own thing.” That didn’t feel right but whatever, maybe that was the reason. Scout didn’t know the layout of this battlefield yet, there could be something on the way Scout had been heading that was of interest to Spy. “Like I said earlier though, you should get used to all this eventually. Until then I suggest not shooting the enemy in the face, that’s how you get brains splattering everywhere.”

Ugh, just thinking about it almost made Scout feel like vomiting again. But Spy was right, he just needed some time to get used to killing and the gore it brought with it. He’d been rather horrified and disgusted the first time he’d seriously injured someone too – a bully he’d whacked with a steal bat, shattering their kneecaps – and he’d gotten used to that too. He didn’t take any pleasure in it but he could do it without flinching. It had taken him some time to get used to it though, that’s all he needed here too. He didn’t want to think about it right now though so…

“Sniper told me you’re an alien,” he said, looking up at Spy.

“That’s true, I’m a…”

“Shapeshifter,” Scout interrupted. “Yeah, I know, he told me. So, uh… what’s your true form?” That was probably a rude question but who cared? Scout wanted to know, how else was he supposed to ask?

Spy scowled at him, yep, he was offended. “Why am I not surprised? If you _must_ know, I consider this to be my ‘true form’.” He gestured down at himself before lifting his hands to make air quotes. “I know that’s not what you mean, trust me, I’ve dealt with humans long enough to know _that_. You’re my teammate and the others of all seen so I _suppose_ I’ll give you what you want this time, you better not ask me to do this ever again though.”

Spy melted. It was like watching a speedup film of ice melting, only it wasn’t ice it was a person. And it wasn’t water but a big pile of translucent greenish gelatin with… Spy’s weapons floating inside.

“Whoa.” Scout crawled closer and poked his finger into the gelatin, or tried to, it pulled away. Right, it wasn’t gelatin but a living thing, an alien. “ _Cool_.”

“Yeah, real ‘cool’.” Even without a mouth Spy sounded the same, annoyed and mildly offended. The gelatin making up his body moved more, quickly forming the shape of a human and going from translucent to full coloured. The transformation was truly amazing, he looked _just_ like a human. … His clothes were fake though, weren’t they? Since they certainly hadn’t been there when he’d been just a pile of goo. Meaning he was technically naked all the time and had been ever since Scout had first saw him. That was a very uncomfortable thought that Scout was never going to consider ever again. “Happy?”

“Yeah,” Scout replied as he sat back. “Why a human though?”

“My line of work makes a human form the most logical.”

“And the accent?”

“It makes me sound sophisticated.” More like a pompous asshole but now wasn’t the time to point that out. He was _finally_ talking, Scout couldn’t blow this opportunity.

“So… are you like copying a real person’s form or something similar? Or did you come up with that on your own? And you said it was your ‘true form’ or whatever, Sniper called it your preferred form I think, why is that?” If Scout were a shapeshifter, he wouldn’t settle for a shape so mundane. He’d give himself wings for sure and claws and scales, basically he’d be a dragon if he could.

“I came up with this myself and I’ve grown rather attached to it for reasons that are none of your business,” Spy answered, seemingly very proud of it. Again, Scout had to refrain from pointing out that the ski mask was a dumb choice, he didn’t have a face to hide so it was useless.

“Be a mysterious ass then. Can you shapeshift into anything at all?”

“Pretty much yes. I only have so much mass to work with so there are limits to how big or small I can be.”

“Can you shapeshift into a dragon?”

Spy frowned at him. “Why are you asking so many questions?”

“Because I want to know and you’ve been answering them so far, well some of them anyway. So, could you shapeshift into a dragon for me?”

“No.”

“Ah, but…”

“No ‘but’s. You seem to be feeling much better though so I will leave you to your endeavors. You can either continue your mission or go back to base and say you didn’t find anything, either is acceptable.” Spy vanished and the sound of footsteps in the sand signaled his departure.

Scout frowned after him before sighing. He was serious about this job so he had to back to his scouting mission and just hope he didn’t have cause to blow anyone else’s brains out yet. Though the practice and exposure to such would hasten him settling into this job and getting used to that stuff, he wasn’t ready for that yet though.

But he’d had a not horrible interaction with Spy for once. Heck, he’d even be willing to call it a positive interaction even if Spy was still a bit cold and aloof. Maybe there was hope for them to at least get along professionally after all.


	13. First Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More non-permanent death in this chapter if you can't tell by the chapter title.
> 
> Also, uploading in the middle of the day instead of stupidly early in the morning just before going to bed like I normally do because my laptop was having issues last night. This feels weird and I do not like it but I gotta keep my upload streak alive.

Sniper had been shot before, that was one of the biggest risks that came with his chosen profession. It always hurt like a bitch. He wouldn’t have thought anything could get worse than that. Unfortunately, he’d been wrong, getting shot in the chest was _much_ worse.

Every breath was _agony_ and yet he gasped for breath as his lungs filled with blood. He was drowning and bleeding to death at the same time as he lay curled up in his sniper’s perch, his own blood pooling beneath him as it soaked through his clothes.

He opened his mouth to call for Medic but coughed up blood instead, the pain taking his breath away. Blessedly blackness soon starting eating at the edges of his vision, bringing with it cold and numbness. He was dying. He wasn’t ready to die yet though, there were so many things he needed to do. … He couldn’t fight it though as the blackness consumed his vision and soon after what was left of his mind.

 

He opened his eyes to see he was standing in a small white room. He lifted a hand to his chest where the bullet had entered. Nothing, not even a hole in fabric of his uniform, no pain either. Was this…

“Holy hell, what the fuck?”

Sniper snapped his head to side to see that Scout was suddenly standing beside him. The shocked expression on his face matched how Sniper felt.

Right… “The Respawn Chamber,” Sniper said, letting out a small sigh of relief. He’d somehow forgotten about it, though could he really be blamed for that considering the fact that he’d been dying? … Had literally died. Now wasn’t the time to think about the implications of that.

“Yeah,” Scout said in a shaky voice. He faked a grin. “That uh… sucked real bad. Let’s get out of here before someone else… like does the thing, huh?”

Sniper grunted his agreement and led the way out, holding the door for Scout.

“So, uh…” Scout glanced around the room as Sniper let the door close behind him. “I guess we’re supposed to get back out there and go back to killing the enemy and stuff… I guess. You go on ahead, I uh… need to tie my shoe.” He sat down in one of the chairs and pulled up his shoe – both of them were tied – and untied it to start fiddling with it.

Letting out a breath, Sniper sat next to him, placing his sniper rifle across his lap. He needed a breather too. Upon being introduced to the Respawn Chamber he’d known he would die and come back eventually. But he hadn’t truly internalized it and had thus not been prepared for it.

If Scout felt anything about Sniper joining him, he didn’t say anything. He did however give up on the charade of needing to tie his shoe, fixing it and then leaving it be. For once he was silent, an understandable reaction.

They’d been sitting there for maybe five minutes before the door opened again and Heavy and Medic came through. Heavy looked shocked and pale, mirroring Scout and Sniper’s reactions. Medic however looked fascinated.

“It doesn’t feel any different going through a second time,” he announced, seemingly indifferent to the mood of everyone else in the room.

“Uh… that’s interesting, I guess?” Scout replied. “You okay Heavy?”

Heavy shrugged and shook his head. “Death is not fun.”

“You can say that again,” Scout agreed with a chuckle that _had_ to be forced even if it sounded genuine.

“Yes, yes, it’s awful.” Medic condescendingly patted Heavy’s shoulder. “Let’s get back out there though, we have people to kill.”

Heavy groaned but followed Medic back out. Sniper stayed where he was though, he needed a few more minutes and he was going to take them. Scout stayed too.

Pyro came through the Respawn door a few seconds later. He waved, wriggling his fingers in greeting before continuing on, skipping as if he were absolutely delighted with everything and having the time of his life.

“Okay, he just got a lot weirder,” Scout said. “And that’s saying something because he was already pretty weird to begin with.”

“Yep.” Sniper had met strange people before but Pyro was now officially the strangest one. And this job was the strangest one he’d ever taken. It paid well though so he wasn’t complaining.

“You think maybe he’s insane?”

“Don’t know, maybe.”

“Medic is for sure though. This whole job is pretty crazy. … I like it though, I think. Other than for the whole… you know, _thing_.” Scout gestured towards the Respawn door.

Sniper grunted his agreement as he let Scout continue chatting at him, apparently his shocked silence had been broken. That was probably a good thing though. Considering it was his probably his first job like this, he was doing pretty well handling it.

Because of Scout’s talking, it took Sniper longer than he’d intended to get back out on the battlefield. In that time everyone else on the team came through the Respawn door at least once. Engie looked fascinated, Soldier indifferent, Demo shocked, and Spy who came through last, offended and annoyed. No surprising reactions there.

As Sniper finally peeled away from the conversation to get back to work, Scout followed. “You can keep resting if you need to,” Sniper offered.

“Nah, I think I’m good,” Scout replied with a shrug. Whether he as being genuine or trying to come off as cool again was hard to tell. “It’s just one of those things I got to get used to, right? The only way to do that is to participate and stuff. So, I’ll be fine.”

“Whatever you say mate.” Dying and Respawning wasn’t something Sniper wanted to get used to but he undoubtedly would eventually. All of them would.


	14. Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to write a proper start for the Pyro/Medic plot thread thing, this is the result.
> 
> Also, this was a true adventure in figuring how I write this Pyro different from how I write normal Pyro. Which is a bit more different than I'd predicted.

The weird purple plants burned a bluish purple when set ablaze and let out a thick purplish smoke that hung heavy in the air. Pyro had figured this out on accident when he and the enemy Pyro had been battling, spewing their flames at each other – with little affect – and accidentally setting one the plants on fire. Because they’d been in the midst of battle and the speaker boss lady was yelling at them, Pyro hadn’t had time to investigate further. But they’d reached their first break day so Pyro was finally free to play.

He skipped around the base, setting every plant he came across on fire with his flamethrower. Fire was truly majestic, the way it destroyed things, burning them down to nothing, dancing prettily the whole while until nothing was left but smoke and ash to be blown away in the wind. Once the thick purple haze cleared and the sands buried the ashes, there’d be no sign left of the purple plants. And _he’d_ caused that with one little pull of his finger on the trigger, one strong blast of flame.

He was watching the flames on the third plant he’d found dwindle to nothing when… “If you’re going to be burning things you should come get me so I can experiment.” It was Medic marching up the sand dune towards Pyro. His lower face was covered by air filtration device, similar to the one that was part of Pyro’s gas mask. It muffled his voice a bit but not too bad. “I need to know if this smoke is poisonous.”

Pyro lifted a hand to wriggle his fingers in greeting. He would’ve apologized for not getting Medic – it hadn’t even occurred to him that Medic might be interested otherwise he would’ve invited him but now he knew better for the future – but his hands were full of flamethrower so he couldn’t.

“Yes, hello,” Medic replied offhandedly. “Now what exactly are you burning that’s making all this purple smoke?” He waved a hand in the air in front of him, doing little to actually dispel it. “It’s starting to drift to base and Engie’s complaining about it.”

Oh! Pyro probably should’ve gone further away from the base. He hadn’t even considered that the smoke might drift and effect the others. But oh well, too late now. He gestured with his flamethrower for Medic to follow him as he skipped off to look for another plant to burn.

It only took a few minutes to find one. He pointed to it before hefting his flamethrower up to blast it with fire and show Medic how pretty the flames were as they consumed it. Before he could pull the trigger though, Medic put a hand on his flamethrower and gently pushed the barrel back down.

“Let me harvest it and then you can burn it back at base so I can run some experiments on the smoke.”

Oh! He was going to get to help Medic with his experiments, how exciting! He hopped back and nodded, giving Medic a thumbs up. He’d get to play with fire and help with science stuff at the same time.

 

While they worked – Pyro’s main job was burning things with his lighter, the _best_ job, though he was allowed to press some buttons on Medic’s fancy lab equipment too which was also fun – Medic explained what he was doing and what results his tests were getting. What exactly it all meant was a bit beyond Pyro, science and medical stuff wasn’t his area of expertise, but he got the gist of it. The smoke probably wasn’t poisonous but wasn’t neutral either. It should have an effect on people but it wasn’t clear quite _what_ effect.

“Only one way to find out,” Medic said. “Go gather the rest of the team, tell them to meet up in the entrance area of the ground base. Don’t tell them I sent you otherwise they won’t come.”

“Why wouldn’t they come?” Pyro signed. Why would they gather for him but not Medic?

“They just wouldn’t. Now go on, I’ll set everything up.”

Pyro shrugged it off and nodded before skipping out. He could gather everyone together easy-peasy.

 

Demo and Soldier were already there, playing cards. Heavy and Engie were easy to find and convince to go there too once Pyro told them it was important. How important it was in truth, he didn’t know since Medic hadn’t told him but who cared? He’d get to burn more things and Medic would get to do his experiment, a win-win.

He found Scout and Sniper next, hanging out outside. Scout seemed to really like hanging out with Sniper a lot. It was cute and Pyro wished them the best of luck together.

“Why?” Scout asked with a frown, crossing his arms after Pyro told them where to gather with everyone else.

“Just because,” Pyro replied. “It’s important.”

Sniper sighed but stood and started heading in that direction. Scout looked at him and then back at Pyro before following suit with a groan. Good, now the only person left was Spy.

Spy was always the hardest to find but Pyro was good at finding people. So it didn’t take him long. But as he lifted his hands to tell Spy where to go Spy said, “Yeah, I know. Medic’s having you gather everyone for one of his experiments. I’m not going.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.” Spy vanished before Pyro could reply.

“Be like that then,” Pyro signed in his general direction even though Spy had probably already turned away and thus couldn’t see it. “We don’t need you anyway.” He then turned skipped back towards the entrance hall.

 

“What is this about?” Solider asked as Pyro and Medic walked into the room. Everyone was seated at the table now and looked up as the two of them. Being the center of attention was fun.

“Yeah, and why are you wearing that thingy?” Scout added, gesturing to his lower face in reference to the air filtration device Medic still wore.

“We’re doing an experiment,” Medic replied as he placed the plant on the table and unrolled it from its fireproof blanket so that it lay on top of it. “Spy however neglected to join us so I will have to hunt him down later but you guys should do just fine for now.”

“You know, for some reason I get the feeling this ain’t going to be fun for us,” Demo said with a frown.

“Yeah, no, I’m leaving, fuck this.” Scout stood and headed for the door. But Medic had locked it after they’d come through. “What the hell?”

“Pyro, if you would do the honors.” Medic gestured towards Pyro, ignoring everyone else’s worried looks.

Pyro didn’t want them to be worried but… he wanted to burn the plant, show them how pretty it was. What if their worry was justified though? What if it hurt them? Well, they had the Respawn Chamber so if it was deadly then they could just Respawn. So… it was fine. Medic had said it probably wasn’t deadly anyway. They’d probably just cough a bit because of the smoke and that was it.

So he pulled out his lighter and set the plant on fire before anyone could try to stop him. It caught without a problem and was soon burning merrily, filling the room with its purple smoke. “See?” he signed as he looked up at everyone again. “It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

“Pretty ain’t the word I would use,” Engie said as he stood, backing up. He was covering his mouth and nose with his hands. Soldier was the only one who wasn’t until Demo whispered something to him, then he too lifted his hands to cover his lower face.

“This is _bullshit_ , let us out.” Scout kicked the door, winning nothing for his efforts.

“Yes Doctor, this is not good,” Heavy weighed in too, voice filled with disapproval. “What if its deadly?”

“It’s not deadly, I promise,” Medic said with an annoyed sigh. “So stop being babies about it.”

The argument continued but Pyro stopped paying attention and just watched the fire dance as it consumed the plant. Why would they be worried about this killing them when they’d just Respawn? They didn’t need to be afraid of anything anymore and yet they still were. Whatever, it was none of Pyro’s business, they’d get used to it eventually.

A few minutes later the fire dwindled to nothing as it ran out fuel. By now the smoke filling the room was so thick it was like sitting in a cloud, a bluish purple one. Personally, Pyro liked that thought even if it was a bit hard to see through it.

He looked up, lifting his hands to ask what the others thought now that they were done arguing with Medic. But they were all sleeping? Passed out with their heads in their arms at the table or lying sprawled out on the floor.

“Don’t touch me _asshole_.” Scout was still awake, now seated in the one of the chairs. Medic was trying to examine him but he pushing Medic’s hands away. “Why am I… even the only one still awake?” The slight slur in his voice and the way his body sagged said it was only a matter of time before that as no longer the case.

“I believe you have a resistance to it,” Medic replied, frowning down at Scout. “I wish to study it. I suppose I will have to wait until you pass out since you seem intent on being difficult right now.”

“Fuck you,” Scout flipped him off.

Pyro got up and poked Heavy’s shoulder. He grunted softly but otherwise didn’t stir. A quick nudge to everyone else got the same results. They weren’t hurt, just asleep, that was fine. See? They’d had nothing be worried about.

“This is what you wanted to test, right?” he signed to Medic.

“Yes, exactly,” Medic replied as he jotted down something on his clipboard before looking up at Pyro again. “Thank you very much for your help.”

“Can I help you with more experiments in the future?” This one had been fun; he’d got to burn things for _science_ and send the rest of the team off to naptime. And he liked when he could be of assistance.

“Of course, your help is always welcome. Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe Scout has finally succumbed to the smoke as well.”


	15. Town Bar

As expected, Scout was starting to get used to the whole killing thing. It helped a lot that the enemy team had a Respawn Chamber of their own – they also only had nine people, seemingly filling the same nine roles – so he wasn’t killing them _permanently_. He was also kind of, sort of starting to get used to dying and waking up in the Respawn Chamber. Which wasn’t something he’d truly thought possible and yet here he was.

Getting a break from all of it was more than a little appealing though. So, when Demo suggested they all go to the bar in town now that they were able to exchange some of their paychecks for a currency that would be accepted by the local townsfolk, he accepted.

It was a bar. There was nothing really all that unique about it other than the fact it was built of white stone and everything was portioned to accommodate the squat little lizard aliens that inhabited this planet. It made Scout feel tall and caused nothing but problems for Heavy, the biggest member of the group. But all nine of them somehow managed to settle down at a table anyway, more like two tables smushed together.

Pyro still being the only one capable of communicating with the locals ordered for them. He did so while practically bouncing with excitement about being useful. After the incident with the purple smoke it made Scout a bit nervous but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

It wasn’t long before all but Pyro had a drink placed in front them. It came in a stone mug and was an unpleasant shade of pink.

Unlike everyone else at the table, Demo didn’t hesitate before taking a drink from it. He smacked his lips and frowned slightly. “It tastes horrible,” he said before proceeding to take an even bigger drink. He didn’t keel over though so…

Scout took a sip from his own mug. … Yep, ‘horrible’ was the only word to describe it. Which was a trademark of normal alcohol so that didn’t mean it was bad. Enduring it for the sake of getting drunk might be worth it though, assuming humans could get drunk off it.

“Eh, I’ve tasted worse,” was Soldier’s response as he followed Demo’s lead and drank some more.

Spy took a single small sip, made a face and immediately put it back down, clearly not intending to drink anymore. Heavy, Engie, and Sniper made no comment about it as they sipped at their own drinks. Pyro naturally wasn’t drinking with them as that would involve taking off his mask which he refused to do. And Medic who had _insisted_ on being the designated driver for the return trip had pulled out a clipboard, clearing intending to take notes on what kind of effects it would have on everyone.

“Spy,” he said, gesturing with his pen, “drink it, I need to know how it affects you too.”

“No, thank you. It’s _horrid_.”

Medic opened his mouth to answer but paused as Spy vanished. “Don’t you bail out on me, I need to know.”

The chair Spy was sitting on shifted a little as he presumably stood to leave. Other than that though, there was no response. Which judging by Medic’s frown made him very displeased.

“Screw him,” Demo cut in. “We can have fun without him,” He raised his mug in a toasting gesture.

“Yeah.” Scout raised his own glass in response. They could have fun and get drunk without Spy. It’d be better without Medic there too but he didn’t exactly have any say in that matter.

 

It didn’t take too long before they go their answer about whether or not they could get drunk off it. Demo downed it as if it were water, resulting in the tell-tale signs of intoxication in less than half an hour.

“It don’t feel like normal drunk,” he slurred out, his words barely understandable. “But not bad… kind of weird though. Eh, I’ll get used to it.” He shrugged finishing off the rest of his mug and gesturing for the waiter to refill it.

Scout was agreement that it didn’t feel like ‘normal drunk’. He _would_ describe it as bad though. His head hurt and he felt simultaneously too hot and too cold on top of a general feel of _wrongness._ Thus he wanted to stop after just one but everyone else ordered another round – Demo and Soldier were on their who even knew what round – so he did too. He wasn’t a wuss, he could handle alcohol, even alien alcohol.

It wasn’t too much longer before a thump came from one end of the table. Scout looked over too see that Demo had finally passed out, his head has slammed into the table. Soldier was now patting him on the back, saying something to him that Scout couldn’t quite make out over the growing ringing in his ears.

A light prod on his shoulder drew his gaze to Sniper sitting beside him while everyone else was looking at Demo. “You uh… okay there mate?” he asked, his brow furrowed with concern. Hey, he was worried about Scout’s health, that meant he at least sort of cared a little bit, right? That was a good first step in any relationship. Now if only Scout didn’t feel like he was dying so he could appreciate it more.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he lied before taking another sip from his drink. He almost couldn’t taste it anymore. His mouth felt numb but he managed to swallow it anyway.

Sniper just looked at him, his frown deepening. “Uh… your nose is uh…” He gestured vaguely.

Scout lifted hand to his nose and it came away wet with blood. His nose was bleeding, quite badly too. “Oh,” was all he could say as he stared at the crimson on his hand.

“Uh Doc,” Sniper said, speaking louder than Scout had ever heard him speak before. Too bad he didn’t get to hear more of it as he was suddenly falling over.

And… he opened his eyes to sight of white walls in the Respawn Chamber. Blinking in confusion, he stared at them. He’d… died. Which was something he’d done quite a few time by now but every time he’d seen it coming. Not this time though. … On the bright side, he felt a million times better. That was certainly one way to get over being drunk and not have to deal with hangover quick. It was far from ideal though, dying wasn’t fun.

He exited the Chamber, freezing as soon as he out. Spy was sitting in a chair nearby smoking a cigarette, as if he’d been waiting.

“Uh… hey,” Scout said. If it wasn’t for that one positive interaction they’d had during their first battle he would’ve been more annoyed. “What are you doing here?”

Spy grunted noncommittedly in reply.

“It’s _totally_ just a coincidence that you’re hanging out in front of the Respawn Chamber, right?”

“I suppose so,” Spy replied, sounding disinterested. He was up to something but… _what_? More importantly…

“How’d I… end up there?” Scout pointed back at the door to the Respawn Chamber. Saying out loud that he’d died still odd and uncomfortable.

“Alcohol poisoning would be my guess. And at least we now know that the Respawn Chamber does have a good range on it. I was pretty sure it would, it’s good to have confirmation though.

“But I didn’t drink _that_ much.” Scout had only had like two mugs. “Demo and Soldier had _way_ more and they seemed fine… well not _dead_ anyway.” Surely if it was toxic to humans Demo would’ve fallen over dead within minutes with how fast he was going through it. “Does this mean the others are going to like… you know, come through too?”

“Maybe, I suppose we’ll see.” Spy stood and strolled out, pausing by the door to look back at Scout. “I would recommend you don’t drink that stuff anymore.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Scout said despite the fact that Spy had already exited. There was no point trying to get information out of him, it wouldn’t work and he’d just go invisible if Scout tried.

 

No one else came through the Respawn Chamber. They all returned back to base via the old-fashioned way a short time later, all varying degrees of intoxicated except for Medic and Pyro. Demo and Soldier were both unconscious, clearly not dead though.

The group locked onto him and approached as soon as they saw him. “You died,” Pyro signed. “You all right boy?” Engie asked. “You okay?” Heavy asked. All speaking/signing at the same time while Sniper just looked vaguely concerned and Medic looked far too interested.

“Yeah, I’m good. What happened?”

“You died,” Medic said, his tone matching his intrigued look and sending a chill down Scout’s spine. “I need to experiment to find out why.”

“Uh _fuck_ no. If you even try I’ll bash your face in.” Scout would rather die again than be subject to Medic’s experimentation once more. He _still_ didn’t know what Medic had done to him after he’d passed out from the smoke the other day and he didn’t really want to know either.

“Yeah, no, Doc don’t,” Engie agreed. “Why don’t you help us get Demo and Soldier safely in their beds huh?”

Medic made a pouting face that was almost comical but turned to follow Engie and Heavy out, heading towards the bedrooms. Which left Pyro and Sniper with Scout.

Pyro stepped forward to stand directly in front of Scout, meaning he had something say. “Blood was leaking out of your eyeballs,” he signed, moving his hands slowly so Scout could understand. For once he wished he couldn’t though. “The locals were very upset. Medic said it was probably a brain thing. He tried to help though but then you died anyway because he didn’t have the stuff to fix it.”

“Uh… thanks Pyro, I really wanted to know that.”

“You’re welcome,” Pyro signed before cheerfully skipping off.

“Uh… yeah, it was pretty bad,” Sniper said, awkwardly rubbing the back on his neck with a grimace. He wasn’t quite steady on his feet. “Uh… glad you’re okay though, we was worried Respawn might not… extend that far for a bit, ‘til your body vanished. Maybe don’t uh… ever drink that stuff again, huh?”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” It had tasted nasty anyway so no loss there. “Why’d it only do that to me though?”

Sniper shrugged. “Maybe you’re allergic.”

“Hmmm… I guess maybe.” Why did the _one_ thing Scout was allergic to – as far as he was aware anyway – have to be alien alcohol? It simply wasn’t fair, especially since he was the only one. Whatever, he could live with that. And at least he now knew that most the team – except for Medic, probably Spy, and maybe Pyro – cared about him, including Sniper. That was good information to have even if the journey to get it hadn’t been pleasant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More ways Scout is realizing he's different. I'm not 100% sure where I'm going with that, if it's gonna lead to him finding out he's actually half alien or if goes nowhere. I guess we'll see, huh?


	16. Different

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thought to write this kinda conversation occurred to me so I did it solely for fun and to revel in some dramatic irony. I considering not posting it because of how short it is but then I figured y'all already know not to expect a full complete story out of this fic so it shouldn't be an issue.

Finding Sniper while not on the battlefield was often difficult. Which perhaps meant he didn’t want to be found so Scout should probably leave him alone. On the flipside though, whenever Scout did find him and made his presence known, he never seemed annoyed or bothered in anyway. So maybe he welcomed the company? Or at least didn’t mind. Either way, as long as he _seemed_ okay with it, Scout was going to hang out with him whenever the mood took him.

This time, Scout found him on top of a sand dune overlooking the river separating the two enemy bases. It was late, the first moon was just starting to appear on the horizon along with an infinite number of stars above them. The sight _still_ took Scout’s breath away sometimes.

“Howdy Snipes, mind if I join you?” he asked.

“Sure,” Sniper replied, the word a half grunt.

See? If he wasn’t okay with Scout hanging out with him, he’d have said ‘no’, right? So Scout was not at all being a bother as he sat down next to him. He even managed to maintain the peaceful silence for a while before inevitably needing to break it.

“So uh… I realized recently that I’m like… different from you guys. Not like I’m a super special or anything but like, the smoke from Medic and Pyro’s experiment took much longer to put me to sleep. And when we all went to the bar together the other day, drinking that stuff _killed_ me. Why is that?” And when he’d first joined up why had Medic been so focused on studying him? That couldn’t be normal, could it? So there was something different about him but… what?

Sniper shrugged. “Maybe you got a rare gene or something. You could ask Medic.”

“I’d rather _not_ ask Medic.” That was the absolute _last_ thing Scout wanted to do. “But maybe I _do_ have a rare gene. Maybe somewhere in my bloodline is some kind of super special divine royalty. Maybe it also gives me special magic powers like flight or… invisibility or something else cool.” That’d be wicked sick. “So maybe I’m secretly the heir to a magical kingdom in another dimension.”

Sniper let out a small chuckle. “That’s ridiculous mate. I’d find it much more believable that your part alien or something. Maybe like a grandparent or something you don’t know about.”

“Is that even physically possible?”

“Supposedly yeah. I heard some alien species can reproduce with humans and that the results are pretty interesting. Never seen it myself though.”

Scout learned something new every day it seems. “That’d be super cool but uh… I doubt it.” The few oddities that he’d found didn’t count as ‘pretty interesting’, they were boring and caused him nothing but discomfort or full on suffering – if it wasn’t for Respawn he’d be dead because of it. “It’s probably nothing.” Unfortunately. “I’m probably just unlucky and got stuck with some weird gene thing probably from my dad because he’s already an asshole so why wouldn’t he be even more of damn asshole.”

There was a pause before Sniper replied. “What’d he do?”

“Who? My dad? He left when I was too young to remember him because he’s a deadbeat piece of shit.”

“Oh… sorry mate. That sucks.”

“Yeah, it does. But let’s not talk about it.” Thinking about his dad always left him feeling disgruntled and unhappy. On one hand he wished he could meet him one day, ask him _why_ he left. On the flip side though, he was justifiably angry and would want give him a good punch if they ever met. He wanted to only feel the latter but the former and the sense of betrayal accompanying it never went away. So it was best to never talk or even think about it too much.


	17. Space Raccoon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short one but Soldier needs his raccoon equivalent.

They liked to get into the trash and eat anything even remotely edible and some things that weren’t. So, a trashcan lying on its side and filled with dinner leftovers was the _perfect_ trap. The moons high up in the sky provided more than enough light to see by so now all Solider had to do was sit and wait in the base’s shadow.

He’d been sitting out there for maybe thirty minutes when one appeared from over the top of a dune. It hesitated before darting for the trashcan, jumping in with a rattle. Solider pounced and pulled the trashcan up right so that the furred creature would be trapped at the bottom of it.

It made a high-pitched sound as it tried to climb out. It would’ve succeeded too if Soldier hadn’t grabbed it.

“Good girl,” he told her as he lifted her up by the ‘arm pits’. She bit and clawed at him but he held her out and away from himself so she couldn’t damage him much. “I’m going to tame you and then you’ll guard the base while we’re away.” Having a pet around was always good, they were useful in many different ways and were just wonderful in general.

He hadn’t been allowed to bring his raccoons with him onto the ship so he’d make do with these space raccoons. They were almost just as good even if they were a bit bigger and looked a bit more like a ferret than a raccoon and was red, the same colour as the sand at night. Larger claws and teeth too. But their fur was a darker colour around their eyes, looking a bit like a mask, meaning it was a for sure a space raccoon.

“Good girl,” he said again as he squeezed her a bit tighter to stop her from thrashing so much as he started back for the base’s entrance. “Now we just need to pick a good name for you and start training you.”

 

“What the hell is that?” Scout asked the next morning when Soldier brought her to breakfast.

“This is Lieutenant Bites,” he said. She’d calmed down quite a bit since last night and now rode of his shoulder, hissing at anyone who came too close. He’d have to get shoulder pads if this continued as her claws were digging through his shirt and into his shoulder. “She’s my new pet raccoon.”

“Uh… I’ve never seen a real raccoon before but even _I_ know that’s a raccoon.” Scout pointed at her, earning a hiss.

“I assure you that she is a space raccoon.” Soldier knew a raccoon when he saw one, even if it was a space raccoon.

“Uh… Solly,” Demo stepped in. “Regardless of what she is or is not, I don’t think brining a wild alien animal into the base is a good idea.”

“Nonsense, she’s perfectly harmless.” Soldier reach up a hand to pet her. She even _let_ him, taming her was going wonderfully.

“And all those fresh scratches and bitemarks on your arms are testament to just how ‘harmless’ she is?” Spy said.

“I’m still working on her training. It’s going very well so far.”

“Still is not a good idea,” Heavy cut in. “Is unsanitary and possibly…”

“Ooh, a wild animal,” Medic interrupted as he finally joined them in the dining room. He was a last to arrive like usual. “Let me dissect it.”

“Absolutely _not_!” Soldier reached up and pulled her off his shoulder to hold her close and protectively to his chest. She snarled, hissed, and bite him some more but he ignored it. “If you touch her, I will break every bone in your worthless body, maggot.” He was a hundred percent serious too. No one was allowed to hurt his pets under any circumstances.

Medic’s excitement vanished with a groan as he frowned and rolled his eyes. “Fine, I’ll catch my own then.”

“Now if we are done _berating_ my new beloved, it’s time for food.” Soldier gave them all one last warning glare before pushing Lt. Bites back up onto his shoulder and sitting at the table. “We have a battle to win in an hour, everyone better pull their weight unless they want to do a hundred pushups.”

There were a few grumbles but ultimately everyone moved on. They were all just going to have to get used to Lt. Bites being part of the team now. If they didn’t like it then that was just too bad.


	18. Archimedes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My self indulgence reaches a new high with this chapter and I'm not at all ashamed of it.

It was hard to tell what kind of animal it was exactly. It was injured and bleeding, half buried in the sand, making it difficult to make out in the darkness before the moons rose fully. It had to be a flying creature though, otherwise it wouldn’t have been able to crash into the window which is what had drawn Medic out here.

It was still clearly alive though, twitching and weakly thrashing so Medic carefully scooped it up, using his lab coat in case it was dangerous to touch with bare hands. He then brought it inside and started for his lab. He was either going to dissect it or keep it as a living specimen to study.

Once safely sequestered in his lab – he’d run into no one on the way there – he lay the creature out on the examination table, his coat underneath it. It was a reptile with wings, a tail, and a long neck. And upon further examination it actually wasn’t injured too bad, or at least not so badly that it was in immediate danger of dying. Its wing was in a bad way though, probably the reason why it had crashed into the window. But Medic could easily save its life even if it probably would never would fly quite right again.

 

“I shall call you ‘Archimedes,” Medic said.

The little flying reptile looked up at him from where he rested on Medic’s desk and made an almost chirp sound as if he approved of the new name. It had only been two weeks since Medic had found him and he’d already grown attached. He hadn’t meant to, he’d only wanted to keep Archimedes to study. But he’d always had a bit of a soft spot for animals, especially animals that could fly – though Archimedes couldn’t right now, his wing was still healing and he’d most likely fly a bit lopsided for the rest of his life. So here they were now.

And having been named, Archimedes was officially his pet. Which meant it was probably time to introduce him to the rest of the crew since they’d undoubtedly catch sight of him eventually. It was best to get the introduction and explanation over with now.

Medic held out his hand and Archimedes obediently stepped on and climbed up to perch on his shoulder. It had taken a grand total of two hours for Medic to train him to do that. Evidence of intelligence which had been the final nail in the coffin for Medic deciding to keep him as a pet. He stayed there too even as Medic left the lab and exited to the common room where everyone should be gathering for supper.

“Oh my gosh, is that a dragon?” Scout said, shooting up as soon as he caught sight of Medic and Archimedes. He then ran over to investigate, completely disregarding his insistence on being sure to never be within arm’s reach of Medic. “And it’s a baby too, _awesome_!”

“First of all, he’s not a dragon. Dragons are mythical creatures and he is an alien lifeform native to this planet. Second, I’m ninety percent certain he’s full grown,” Medic corrected as everyone else came over to investigate too. “His name is Archimedes.”

“Nah, it’s a dragon. A miniature one I guess if it’s not a baby. But can I… _Ow_.” Scout snapped his hand back from his attempt at petting Archimedes. “He bit me.” He sounded personally offended.

“I wonder why,” Spy said with an eye roll.

“Yeah, I’d say that’s a dragon, no doubt about it,” Demo said. “Looks just like how they’re supposed to look, don’t deny it.”

Well, that _was_ true, Archimedes looked almost exactly like the old depictions of some fictional dragon. He was still an alien life form though and thus technically not a dragon. Before Medic could say that though, Soldier spoke up.

“I didn’t know you were a princess,” he said. “You should’ve told us.”

“Uh… what?”

“Dragons guard princesses, right? And he’s guarding you so that means you’re a princess. And that is A-OK as long as you are an _Earth_ princess. It is _awfully_ small dragon though so you must not be much of a princess.”

“I am not a princess and he’s not a dragon.”

“I want a pet dragon,” Scout said, ignoring Medic’s words completely. “Where’d you find him?”

“Outside.”

“Gee that’s a big help. Where outside? Are there more of them? How do I catch one?”

“Of course there are more, I don’t know where they are though.”

Scout thought about it for a second or two before saying, “I’m going go to catch one, someone come help me please. We can catch multiple.” He then turned and ran out.

Sniper, Engie and Demo exchanged a brief look before following him out. Soldier watched them go, lifting a hand up to pet his Lt. Bites perched on his shoulder. “I don’t need a dragon,” he said before leaving too, exiting into the kitchen. Heavy followed him, leaving just Spy and Pyro with Medic. Except Spy vanished a half second later, making his exit needlessly dramatic.

“He’s cute,” Pyro signed, hands shaking with excitement. “Can I pet him?”

“Of course,” Medic replied. “Be careful of his wing and bandaged side though.”

Pyro stepped closer and reached out a hand, moving slowly like you were _supposed_ to do when greeting a new animal. But still Archimedes hissed and bite his hand before he could make contact. Pyro deflated as he pulled his hand back, even without a visible facial expression, his feeling of dejection was obvious. To make matters even worse, Archimedes then moved to Medic’s other shoulder, putting more space between him and Pyro.

“Oh uh… sorry,” Medic said. He didn’t like seeing Pyro sad when he was normally the cheeriest person Medic had ever met – a strange trait given their profession but all the more intriguing for that. “Maybe he just needs some time to get used to you.” It was probably the mask; it was quite scary looking.

“Maybe,” Pyro signed back. “That’s okay though, I’m used to it.” He perked back up a bit. “I can admire him from afar if I have to.” That was at least a good way to look at it.


	19. Dragons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt bad for Pyro at the end of last chapter so I wrote this.
> 
> Also, this is probably where the linearity of this fic starts to kinda fall apart due to the time spans involved.

Pyro sat on the floor in Medic’s lab, watching the dragons climb all over the perch Medic had built for them with Heavy’s help. There were four more of them now; Medic’s flock was slowly growing. Archimedes remained the primary one though, often riding Medic’s shoulder, sometimes even to battle.

But as much as they liked Medic, there seemed to be nothing Pyro could do to make them like him, or at least not dislike him. He couldn’t coo at them the way Medic did or pet them to sooth them. So, he sat on the floor as close as he dared to their perch and watched them instead.

Maybe if he could catch/attract one of his own it would like him. Or maybe he could get a space raccoon to like him, one of Soldier’s – there were two now – or one of his own. But… animals regardless of where they were from tended to dislike him no matter what he did. It was so unfair.

The door opened behind him. Probably Medic since this was his lab. He’d caught Pyro in here a few times by now and had always assured him it was fine as long as he promised not to get into anything important or potentially dangerous so Pyro didn’t need to be concerned about getting in trouble.

“Still sad they don’t like you, huh?” Yep, it was Medic.

Pyro nodded. He loved them and just wanted at least one of them to let him pet it. But they always flew away whenever he tried, sometimes biting him before doing so.

“Well, I’m not sure if this’ll help but one of them laid an egg yesterday. I was thinking that one could be _your_ pet. It shouldn’t be afraid if it gets used to you at a young age.

Pyro jumped up to his feet and turned to face him. “Really?” he signed, almost not daring to hope. He’d have his very own pet raised by him from the moment of its hatching? That’d be a dream come true.

“Yes, really,” Medic replied with a chuckle. “Want to see it?”

Pyro nodded again, almost vibrating with excitement. He’d have hugged Medic but that would’ve prolonged how long it’d be until he got to see his potential new pet.

Medic walked over to the perch. The largest dragon – Archimedes – instantly flew to perch on his shoulder only to fly away again when Medic returned to Pyro’s side a few seconds later. Expected but still sad. The little egg in Medic’s hands made up for it though. Before Pyro could even ask to hold it, Medic was handing it to him.

It was small as was expected from such small creatures. It was greyish in colour with darker specks dotted all over it. It was fragile too though and therefore scary to hold. His hands shook a little as he held it cupped in one hand and stroked it with the other. What if he dropped it or held it too roughly and it broke? He’d never forgive himself.

“Like it?” Medic asked.

Pyro nodded as he signed his best “Thank you,” with only one hand.

“Good, I thought you would. Now, we just have to wait for it hatch and then once it’s old enough to be on its own, it’s all yours.” Hopefully that would be soon.

 

Pyro was awoken by the sound of his phone going off – it was loud and he was a light sleeper and thus it never failed to wake him – a text message. He sat and reached up and over to sleepily paw at the top of his nightstand until he found it to check it.

‘ _It’s hatching._ ’ It was from Medic so there was only one thing that could be hatching. _Finally_ , it had months. Pyro had visited every single day to check it and now it was _finally_ hatching.

He jumped up and almost ran out of his room without his suit. Thankfully he’d been forced to live with it for so long he could pull it on and seal it up in no more than a couple minutes, allowing him to rush out.

He ran to Medic’s lab and didn’t bother knocking before bursting in. “Is it true? Is it really hatching?” he signed as Medic turned to face him.

“Yes,” he replied with a chuckle. Pyro rushed over but Medic caught his arm, pulling him back. “Careful, they don’t like you, remember? So be careful or they might attack you.”

Pyro whimpered in impatience, earning a surprised look of confusion from Medic. Before he could ask about it, Pyro started for the dragon’s perch again, moving much more slowly this time so as not to startle the dragons. He still got angry hisses as he approached. But he didn’t get close enough for them to flee, just close enough that he could see the box part of the perch that housed the egg. Unfortunately he couldn’t see _into_ it well enough to see the egg. But he didn’t want to disturb and upset them, especially right now so he’d just have to suck it up.

Medic stepped up to stand beside him. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you make a sound.” Implying he hadn’t thought Pyro could make sound.

Pyro wasn’t in the mood to discuss this right now so he ignored it. “Could you step closer and keep me updated please?” he signed.

Medic looked at him for a few seconds as if debating whether or not he wanted to push the issue before saying, “Sure,” with a sigh and doing as requested.

 

About an hour later, Medic returned to Pyro’s side with a baby dragon cupped in his hands and two of his pets perched on his shoulders. It was the _cutest_ thing Pyro had ever seen. He didn’t dare take it into his own hand though, just reached out a hand to pet it gently with one finger. Maybe he could take his glove off to pet it with his real hand? … He wasn’t in the mood for uncomfortable questions though so he’d do it later when he was allowed to take his new pet home. … Assuming it didn’t end up fearing him anyway. So far it didn’t seem to so… he was optimistic about this.

“What are you going to name him?” Medic asked.

Pyro had considered that question a lot over the last few months but had never settled on anything good. Now he _had_ to choose, didn’t he? But _what_ would be a good name? “F I R E,” he spelled out with his hands. It was the perfect name, right? He loved fire and he loved the baby dragon. Naming one thing he loved after another thing he loved wasn’t weird, was it?”

Medic didn’t seem to think so. “All right uh… Fire it is then.”


	20. Merasmus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like Merasmus so I wanted him to be in this fic. I didn't know how I was going to introduce him so after like 3 or 4 false starts I discovery wrote my way into whatever this is. Y'all are used to my bullshit by now though. xD He's still a wizard and therefore there's magic in this universe too because a) I said so and b) it's a TF2 AU so pretty much anything goes.
> 
> Also, this is the 20th chapter. It's surprising because doesn't feel like it's been that many chapters or even that long since I started writing it.

The space craft was smaller than Merasmus had thought it’d be. It was designed for three people to live and work in. He’d have gone mad if he had to live with two other people in such close proximity for so long. But he wasn’t here to work onboard it, he was here to steal it.

It was already ready to go and on the launch pad; prepared for the crew supposed to get on it at dawn in a few hours. So he had a limited about of time to _really_ consider it which was for the best because this idea was insane. He had to do it though because there was no way Jane Doe, aka Soldier of all people left Earth when he _hadn’t_. That just wasn’t acceptable so…

He tiptoed up to the space ship. That wasn’t necessary, his invisibility spell was still going strong, only an infrared camera could detect him now. But it just felt like the thing to do. So he tiptoed up the ramp and to the hatch.

Now for the moment of truth. He punched the door code he’d gotten via espionage into lock pad, holding his breath and ready for an alarm to sound. But that didn’t happen, instead the number pad beeped, turned green and the hatch opened. It had worked, he was in. It was almost too easy but he wasn’t going to question his good fortune.

Inside the airlock wasn’t set yet, allowing him to go right into the interior of the ship. It was a tight corridor until it opened up into the main part of the ship; the command deck where the driving and all the research _stuff_ was supposed to happen.

“Why couldn’t we hijack a battle ship instead?” the Bombinomicon whined from his sling on Merasmus’ back. “That’d be so much cooler. We could blow stuff up and fire lasers at things.”

Merasmus rolled his eyes. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that complaint nor was it likely to be the last. Pointing out that ships meant for combat were significantly better guarded, making the act of stealing them _much_ harder and much more dangerous never had any affect so instead he ignored the complaint and went straight to the command deck.

It was intimidating. Filled with buttons and switches and screens. What any of it did was beyond Merasmus, he was a mage not a space pilot. The only technology he was intimately _good_ with was what he’d used to create the Bombinomicon, a sentient AI that was that was the perfect blend of magic and technology. And was now his ticket to getting this thing to fly if he could just find a place to plug him in. Whether or not he’s still be able to summon magic bombs when uploaded to the ship’s computer was yet to be seen but for everyone’s sake, hopefully not. The last thing the world needed was a research ship flying by raining bombs on everyone.

“Ah ha!” Merasmus exclaimed with a grin as he found the perfect port for the Bombinomicon. He unslung him from his back and placed him on the floor under the command center – he was large and made to look like an old-fashioned book which combined with the bombs gave him his name – so there was no way he’d fit on the command center itself without pressing a lot of buttons and potentially doing something bad to the ship.

Despite his earlier complaints, Bombinomicon made a hum of excitement as Merasmus grabbed the cord – installed onto him for the sole purpose of this venture. Other than that, he was silent as he was plugged in.

The ship hummed to life a second later, as Merasmus straightened. The buttons and screens on the dashboard lit up. As far as Merasmus could tell though, no alarms were being raised. Things continued to go smoothly; it was almost too good to be true.

“What’s it like?” he asked. Obviously, he had no point of reference but he wanted to know to anyway.

“It’s… amazing!” Bombinomicon’s came from over the intercom, filling the whole ship. “I’m like… so much more! There are _arms_ on the outside of this thing and I can _move_ them. And the dumb onboard-AI tried to set off an automatic alarm, I _stopped_ it. But hey, you think I can still summon bombs like this? Maybe because I’m bigger now, they’d be bigger too.”

“No! Don’t test that!” That _would_ raise alarms and might damage themselves, especially if a bigger ‘body’ did mean bigger bombs. “Just… do you think you can fly it without killing us?” If he couldn’t then they’d be back to the drawing board on how to get into space. Because Merasmus wouldn’t give up, he wouldn’t let this injustice stand. He deserved to go to space too, he wasn’t going to be outdone by Soldier of all people.

“Hmm… probably.” That certainly inspired confidence, didn’t it? “Let’s test it.”

Merasmus opened his mouth to suggest starting slow but before he could get a syllable out, the world around him jerked with such intensity that it was like a train had hit him.

 

He came with a splitting headache, a crick in his neck and back, and feeling vaguely nauseous. He groaned as he looked up to see that he’d somehow ended up in the back of the command deck, slumped against the wall.

“Hey, you’re awake,” Bombinomicon’s voice came over the speakers, grounding Merasmus in reality. The ship, they’d stolen it and everything had gone according to plan up until…

“What happened?” Merasmus pushed himself up and shook off. His skull hat lay besides him, he bent down to retrieve and place it back on his head.

“I forgot to turn on the life support stuff on before activating that FTL drive,” Bombinomicon answered. “You know, the G-force thing and the airlock and all that stuff. You lived though, yay!” Unsurprisingly, he didn’t sound at all remorseful about the fact that he’d almost killed Merasmus. “Also, I learned why you’re not supposed to go into FTL mood until your in space proper, we almost died. That would’ve sucked. Man, we’re the luckiest people in the galaxy right now.”

Shaking a little, Merasmus sat in the captain’s chair. He was glad he’d missed that, near death experiences weren’t his thing. “So we’re under way now?”

“Yep. Want to see?”

Merasmus nodded, grunting an assent. The large screen in front of him switched away from ship status stuff to what was presumably the view from the outside cameras. It was… a vast expanse of nothing; distant stars and nothing else. Even on a screen it was a lot to take in.

“You can go out for a space walk too if you want.” Bombinomicon added. “We have one those.”

“Later.” Merasmus needed some time to recover first. … And to steel himself because that was a potentially very scary idea. “We have any pursuers?” That had been his biggest worry, getting chased down and captured moments after takeoff.

“Yes, but our… less than proper take off has given us a head start and they’re very far behind now. They won’t catch me, I promise. Now… where we headed? We going to hunt down your ex or what?”

“He’s _not_ my ex!” They’d been roommates, nothing more. And then they’d fought about the raccoons and Soldier had left, leaving him alone. And now Soldier had left _Earth_ so Merasmus had to too because he was _not_ going to let himself be outdone especially by an imbecile. But now that he was in space, what did he do? He’d never thought that far ahead. Part of him had assumed they wouldn’t even make it. And yet here they were, hurdling through space, going nowhere so… “Sure, let’s hunt down Soldier, I guess.” He had nothing better to do and he could at least show off that he had his own ship while Soldier was stuck in whatever kind of ship the company he’d signed up with had.


End file.
